Tears of the Sun
by Made Nightwing
Summary: A Williams doesn't cry, A Williams doesn't apologize, A Williams completes the mission no matter what the cost. Set after Horizon, dedicated to the undefeatable badass that is Ashley Williams. Based on the film starring Bruce Willis.
1. Chapter 1

Tears of the Sun

Inspired by the Bruce Willis Film.

I do not own Bioware, nor do I own Bruce Willis. If I did, then with these two forces at my command I would take over the world.

Two Weeks After Horizon Incident

"This is Citadel News Net, I'm Emily Wong," The young reporter looked seriously at the camera. "The tension that's been brewing for months in the Edigas system has finally erupted. The multi-racial colony world of New Africa has descended into chaos. On a planet inhabited by nine different species and nearly a hundred ideological groups there has been a history of enmity, particularly between the human settlements in the southern hemisphere and batarian separatists in the north."

The camera changed to show a batarian gunning down a human in the street. A human child cried as an asari commando dragged her into cover. "It appears that the turian element of the population, mostly exiles and outcasts from regular turian colonies, have allied themselves with the batarians and have declared war on the human settlements and anyone caught aiding them. The majority of the human population have abandoned their homes and are seeking shelter wherever they can find it. The Council of Matriarchs on Thessia have appealed to the asari on the planet to aid human refugees in any way possible. The elcor and hanar representatives on the Citadel have issued statements saying that they will do their best to assist humans without endangering their own settlements. With the planetary defense grid in batarian hands, the Systems Alliance appears unwilling to risk ships and soldiers to pacify a non-Alliance world. The Council have not yet made a statement on the situation, but Citadel representatives are already being evacuated."

SOMEWHERE IN THE ATTICAN TRAVERSE

SSV EVEREST, FLAGSHIP 5TH FLEET

COMMANDING OFFICER: CAPTAIN JAMES REYNOLDS

COMMANDING OFFICER 5TH FLEET: ADMIRAL STEVEN HACKETT

Three Kodiak shuttles approached the giant hulk of the Everest. The first shuttle received his flight path and slowed down to enter the Everest's landing bay.

On board the Everest, Khalisah Al Jilani stood in front of her camera drone. "As you can see behind me on the SSV Everest, activity is high as Citadel and Alliance representatives continue to be evacuated from New Africa. This once peaceful planet has been rocked by a series of racial unrests and brief but bitter battles, mainly over control of New Africa's vast mineral supply."

Khalisah put her hand to her headset and listened for a few seconds. When she looked back at the camera, her face was sober. "We've just received word that Matriarch Allatha, the head of the Asari population, has been assassinated along with her entire family."

The doors on the first two Kodiak's opened to reveal a mix of asari and human civilians, along with several human marines and asari commandoes. One commando was helping a marine towards one of the medics. "He took one in the leg," she explained to the medic.

"Get him to sickbay," the medic helped the marine down onto a stretcher.

"Welcome aboard Ambassadors," the XO of the Everest met the Asari and Human diplomats. "Let me escort you to your quarters."

The door on the third Kodiak opened to reveal Operations Chief Ashley Williams. Standing behind her were four other humans, an asari, a salarian and a turian. Williams stepped off the Kodiak and strode across the deck, carrying her M-8 Avenger under her arm. The rest of the shuttles occupants quickly disembarked and followed.

"Well look at you," Admiral Steven Hackett stepped up to Williams. The Alliance admiral noted the dark circles underneath the Chief's eyes and the small graze above her left eye. "Not quite according to plan then?"

"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome," Ash replied curtly. Hackett saw by the look on her face that she didn't want to discuss it out in the open. He nodded to the rest of the troopers behind her. "Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate that you've been helping out there, but we're going to have to put you back in. Get some chow, refit and rearm for a three day deployment in heavy jungle conditions. See the medics if you've got any scratches you want looked at. Chief, you're with me."

Williams nodded to her team as she followed the Admiral into a corridor. "I assume from your message that you found what we were looking for?" Hackett questioned as they entered his quarters. Indicating that she could drop her gear anywhere, he pulled a bottle of whiskey off a shelf and retrieved two glasses from his desk.

"Intel was right about slavers selling all the humans they could get their hands on to the Collectors. We found two hundred plus civilians from the raid on Saocol," Ashley gratefully accepted the drink. "Almost didn't get there in time sir. We were only on the ground for five minutes before a Collector ship came through the relay. They deployed a dropship, then turned their attention to the frigate wolfpack. Kokoda was destroyed and El Alamein lost her engines and weapons, but Tobruk, Gallipoli and Long Tan got up close and gave that ugly bastard a beating with their GARDIANs. Collectors ran for it after that."

"Sounds like I should give Mikhailovich a raise," Hackett smiled as he sipped the eighty year old alcohol. "He trains his frigate captains well."

"They did their job sir," Ashley actually shared the smile. After losing a full half of his 63rd Scout Flotilla against Sovereign, Mikhailovich had become one of the handful of Admirals in the Alliance who were vocal in their disbelief at the Council cover up and not so vocal in their attempts to find hard evidence of the Reaper's existence. Personality wise, the man was still an arsehole, but he was an arsehole that Ashley could trust.

"That dropship had about a dozen Collectors on board. Add about thirty slavers, mostly batarian and we were outnumbered five to one. Started running low on thermal clips for our assault rifles halfway through the fight, so Slow and Red put together some IED's and Z used her biotics to toss the explosives in behind them," Ashley shook her head. "We were lucky they didn't deploy any of those seeker swarms from Horizon or we wouldn't have stood a chance."

"I've authorized the samples that you collected on Horizon be shipped to the STG for analysis, hopefully they can come up with a countermeasure," Hackett finished his glass and set it back down on the desk. "Your team did a good job out there Chief, but I hope you're not too tired for another mission?"

"Assume it's got something to do with that can of worms on New Africa?" her question was answered with a nod. "I'm fit for duty whenever you need me sir. You know that."

Hackett indicated the graze above her eye. "Drink up, get that looked at by the medics, get some chow. I'll see you for briefing in an hour."

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	2. The Only Easy Day, Was Yesterday

Tears of the Sun

The Only Easy Day, Was Yesterday.

I own nothing.

SSV EVEREST: BRIEFING ROOM

"Attention on deck!" Service Chief Michaels barked. Ashley and her team snapped to attention as Admiral Hackett stepped into the room. "As you were," Hackett stepped down the aisle and motioned for Michaels to shut the door. The lights darkened as a holographic screen popped up behind Hackett.

"Everyone get chow?" Hackett sat on a chair next to the screen. A chorus of 'yeps', 'ayes' and 'you call this chow?' answered him. A 3D image of New Africa appeared, then the display zoomed in to an area just south of the equator. "Now, this is your mission area. You'll be spending a lot of time there, so I suggest you get acquainted with it."

The picture changed to show a young Asari putting a bandage on a Salarian. "Your target is Doctor Lina Harrik with Citadel Relief Services. She's a ninety seven year old maiden with three degrees in cross-species medicine. To the people on New Africa, she's the closest thing they've got to a guardian angel. For seven years she's been operating clinics all over the planet."

"Pardon me sir, but why does that make her our problem?" the dark skinned asari spoke up. "Her retrieval should be done by Citadel or Asari military, not by Alliance N7."

"Unfortunately for us," Hackett brought up the next picture, which showed a distinguished looking matriarch shaking his hand at what appeared to be an Alliance ball. "Doctor Harrik's mother is Matriarch Trellani. She's an outspoken supporter of the Alliance, and has taken a lot of political flak from Thessia and the Citadel because of that support. She's a patron of the human arts and pays frequent visits to the Ascension Academy to encourage and to teach."

"So we owe her one," a mutter came from a dark skinned human female with a tattoo of a dragon down the left side of her face. "I hate politics."

"That's the job I'm afraid," Hackett turned back to the screen. "Now, Doctor Harrik is your primary objective. She's located at the Calm Wind mission hospital here, grid 38. Your secondary objectives are an elcor missionary, a hanar doctor and a human nurse, if they so choose to leave."

The screen flicked back over to a topographical map of the area. "Thermal imagery taken by evac birds shows five thousand turians directly north of the mission, but they're a comfortable fifty clicks out. There are also five hundred batarians south east, but Intel says they appear to be sitting still and waiting for something. The orbital defense grid is currently in the hands of the batarians, so we can't fly in and pick her up directly. However, there's a blind spot in the LADAR net that we can slip a Kodiak through. You won't be able to land, but we can parachute you into high atmosphere."

"Float in over the target zone," the Salarian said thoughtfully. "Heavy risk, but the surprise…"

"As I was saying," Hackett cut in. "Once you have the doctor, you will hike twelve clicks to Landing Zone Alpha. Kodiak's will pick you up and take you to one of the Safe Zones that Asari Commando units have been setting up for the past week. So far, the rebels are sticking clear of these safe zones. Once the doctor's inside the safe zone, Operation UPPERCUT commences and we put this little revolution to bed. Your presence on the ground will be considered hostile. Any questions?"

"Sir," the turian stood up. "What are our rules of engagement?"

"You are to defend yourselves if fired upon, otherwise, stay low and do not engage," Hackett had no illusions as to the outcome of a small scale skirmish, the team was too good for there to be any doubt, but he didn't want them to be caught by any of the battalion sized forces roaming the surface.

"Escape and evasion plan sir?" a red haired human male spoke up.

"Landing Zone Bravo is located ten clicks from Alpha, the Asari safe zone another twenty after that. There's a pass through the Kashunga mountain range that you can use," Hackett turned off the display. "You have six hours till that blind spot becomes available. Your Kodiak lifts off in five. Get some sleep, then clean and prep your gear. Good luck."

CREW QUARTERS: OPS CHIEF WILLIAMS  
TWO HOURS LATER

Ash leaned back in her chair, staring at the terminal. After the briefing, Hackett had given her an OSD. She hadn't asked what it was, simply assuming that it was extra data on the mission. When she had opened it however, it had been anything but related to the mission. It was a file on Shephard. It contained the information that Anderson had refused her. Video and audio files showing Shephard's meeting with the Council. Typical of the council, they offered Shephard the carrot, giving him back his Spectre status. Then they showed him the stick, warning him to stay in the Terminus. Attached were reports of explosions and gunfights on Omega, well, more than were usual for Omega, details on the destruction of the Prison Ship Purgatory, and a note from an N6 Recon Platoon of a high ranking Blue Sun and noted Warlord Okeer being found dead on Korlus.

Three items caught her eye. First was a report from Hackett to Alliance Fleet Command, noting that the twenty crewmembers of SSV Normandy SR-1 were no longer MIA, but confirmed KIA with their dog tags returned to their families. The second was a request from Internal Affairs to have Shephard taken into custody. She felt a build up of inexplicable anger at the IA agents longwinded speech, anger that dissipated when she read Hackett's reply. "Request denied motherf***er," she muttered. The last was a heavily encrypted file. She was confused for a second at why Hackett would send her this. Then she saw the text at the bottom. "Steve, some Cerberus dirty laundry. Do what you can with it. You owe me a bottle of the good stuff, Shephard."

She exhaled slowly. What she was seeing was exactly what she'd expect from the old Shephard. The orphaned teenager who'd enlisted after Mindoir, the Sole Survivor of Akuze, the Saviour of the Citadel. This was what he was to the public, the perfect face of humanity. But she had travelled with him, fought alongside him. She had seen his curiosity and amusement when they found Liara, had watched him tackle colonists with his bare hands on Feros, trusting his kinetic barriers to protect him from the bullets of the brainwashed colonists rather than shooting them himself, the flash of concern as he freed the Rachni Queen on Noveria.

She still flushed with embarrassment over how she and Liara had cornered the Commander, demanding that he choose one of them over the other. Shephard had let Liara down easily. Ashley had never gotten particularly chummy with the Asari, but they had formed a camaraderie that came with fighting side by side on several of the missions that Hackett had assigned Shephard. Then came Virmire, the flash of excitement and adrenaline as she was selected to work with Captain Kirrahe, the sliver of fear as they were pinned down at the AA tower. Ash had told Shephard to go back for Alenko, he was the higher ranking officer and a biotic, more valuable to the Alliance than a dozen Gunnery Chief's. But he had come back for her and Kirrahe, saving them from certain death. He had given her comfort when she was drowning in self-loathing, and in return she stood by him when the Council grounded them. Those precious few hours stolen during the night before Ilos. A terror unlike any she had ever known sweeping over her when Shephard shoved her and Garrus out of the way as debris from Sovereign crashed into the Council chambers. A week of skullcrackingly boring debriefings.

Then the weeks spent in the Terminus, pursuing the last remnants of the geth fleet. Time that they spent talking and learning. He told her about his childhood on Mindoir, the shared stories of their early days in boot camp and infantry school. Then the attack, the relief when she saw the escape pod, the heartbreak when only Joker was inside. A month spent grieving and recovering. Then the application for special forces, Hackett had fast tracked her request. Six months spent in mental and physical torture as she earned her N7 rating.

Her eyes began to close as she remembered being summoned to a meeting with Hackett and Anderson.

"Chief Williams, you have been selected for missions that few would qualify for. Missions that few would survive."

Next Chapter the actions starts

My Shephard is pretty much the default Shephard. He's a paragon, but I picture it more as the kind of world weariness that a lot of Special Forces soldiers pick up. They do the right thing, not out of any sense of self righteousness or upbringing, but because they've seen the worst of civilization and don't want to add to the misery.


	3. Men That Strove With Gods

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Three: Men that strove with Gods.

I don't own Bioware, Universal Pictures, etc.

SSV EVEREST: ARMORY.  
THIRTY MINUTES FROM LIFTOFF.  
N7 SOCCOM: EAGLE UNIT.

Jungles, the only climate to defeat modern technology. Williams had spent two months guarding an Alliance funded refinery on Zorya back when she had graduated from Macapa Training Depot. Every marine learned very quickly, that between stifling heat, torrential rain, and sloppy mud, equipment jammed fast. The first thing to go was amour, the sensitive electronic systems, durable under weapons fire, proved to be no match for extended exposure to the elements.

That was why the Alliance had invested the time and money necessary to develop a working solution. Solid metal plates, similar to the plating on Scorpion light armour, were worn across the front and back of the torso. A kinetic barrier harness adapted from the shield system of Colossus X heavy armour was also worn, granting the wearer full body protection. Enhanced targeting scopes and Night Operating Devices had to be carried manually. Without inbuilt hydration systems, slots for thermal clips or food rations, lightweight webbing had to be carried. It was an almost primitive solution, but it was an effective one.

For weapons, Ashley picked her usual M-8 Avenger with an underslung launcher for concussion rounds. After Shephard had died, using the Spectre issue assault rifle he had bought for her didn't feel right. Besides, with the special issue armor piercing rounds she used, the matte black rifle was a deadly tool in her skilled hands.

Hesitating briefly, she took double the normal issue of thermal clips. With the amount of bad guys on the surface, she didn't want to run out of shots in the middle of the firefight. Eight high explosive grenades went into easy to reach pouches. An M-3 Predator heavy pistol rounded out her loadout. She looked curiously at a thick black tube that came with the pistol.

Silencers were highly experimental technology. What had been a simple piece of manufacturing during the twenty first and early twenty second centuries had become enormously complicated with the advent of mass effect technology. It had taken five decades of research to develop the first working prototypes. The theory was that the silencer absorbed the crack of the bullet exiting the barrel, however, it had two flaws. The first was that it only worked with low velocity weapons, ie: pistols. The second, nothing could mask the click of the pistol shaving the ammunition block as it cocked itself after each shot. Ashley wasn't one for stealth, but she could see the advantages of using the silencer, just not that many.

"Why can't anything be easy?" the dark skinned asari stood next to her. "I loathe jungles on principle, but I hate them even more when we have to spend extended periods of time in them, surrounded by a bunch of self-righteous batarians and with our equipment mucking up."

Ashley didn't reply. Zalira Kaethon, a 247 year old Asari huntress had first been assigned to the Alliance Navy by the Council of Matriarchs as a liason officer. To the surprise of many, 'Z', became entranced by the fighting spirit and traditions of the human marines that she worked with. Her completion of N7 training had been a publicity stunt on the part of the Alliance, but it had been a personal challenge to her. After the Battle of the Citadel and the death of Commander Shephard, the Alliance had needed every soldier they had. Z had volunteered for active duty and had spent seven months wiping out geth footholds in Citadel space. When Williams had walked into Anderson's office on the Presidium, Z had been waiting inside. Strong objection probably wouldn't have covered her reaction.

Working with aliens on the Normandy hadn't been a problem. The focus on chasing Saren had dulled her fears, she hadn't had all that much time to focus on disliking her teammates. After their first mission they had reached an understanding that neither one liked the other. Their second mission, Ash had been captured by batarians. Z had flown their drop shuttle into the side of the base and dragged Ash out through a ventilation duct. It had begun an uneasy trust that developed into a friendship over the two years they had fought together.

Z had been exposed to a dangerous element known as Omega-Enkaphlin after an extremely complicated accident involving two hanar, a government transport, an escaped convict and an elcor busker. Ashley had never gotten the finer details, but bottom line? Z was a mediocre biotic at best, barely capable of simple throws and pulls, let alone advanced techniques such as singularities or warps. Despite this drawback, give Z an M-15 Vindicator battle rifle equipped with Disruptor ammunition and Ashley knew that there'd be no bad guys left standing when she was done.

The members of the team that Ash had assembled over two years were, without a doubt, some of the finest soldiers she had ever worked with. True, they didn't have the biotic maelstroms of Liara or Alenko. Nor could any of them have matched the unstoppable force of nature that was Wrex, and their best tech could not have rivaled Tali on her worst day.

"And be honest with yourself girl," Ash had to admit to herself. "You're not half the commander that Shephard was…is." Shephard was sheer willpower, dominance made flesh. Ash and Alenko had followed Shephard because he was their superior officer, the others had followed him because they wanted to, without question, without pause. Even Wrex had fallen in line when Shephard asked.

Ashley's team? 'Well, if you looked closely at them,' Ash thought grimly. 'They're not too damn shabby.'

After Gunnery Chief Kaethon there was Gunnery Chief Daji 'Silk' Karayashi. Silk was a sniper, accurate, deadly, and talked a lot. She carried an M-97 Viper as her primary weapon, the rapid ROF of the sniper rifle allowing Silk to mark individual targets, then snapshoot all of them. Ashley was a marksman, but Silk's ability to rapidly acquire and deal with targets surpassed any she had ever seen. The teams second Gunnery Chief had saved Ash's life on three separate occasions, making shots that should not have been humanly possible. Naturally there was a downside, Silk had an incredibly chequered past. The earthborn soldier had grown up running with one of the most feared gangs of her time, the Tenth Street Reds. Silk had admitted that her teenage years had been spent intimidating, extorting and dealing for the Reds. The tattoo of a dragon scrolling down the left side of her face was a testament of her dedication to the gang. Salvation had come in the form of a gang war, one that had left Silk lying on the side in a gutter with a knife wound in her chest and police finally nabbing her. Silk would have gone to a maximum security prison, but for a judge cutting a deal with Alliance recruiters who were behind on their quotas. Instead of eight years in Farsight Penitentiary on Mars, Silk was offered eight years service to the Alliance, then release with an honorable discharge and a clean record. She took the deal, planning to run for it the first chance she got.

Boot camp at Macapa Recruit Training Depot under Gunnery Chief Ellison came and went, as did eight years of service including three years with the N6 Sniper Unit and a meritorious citation for her actions defending civilian bunkers on Elysium during the Blitz. Silk was now into her eleventh year in uniform, graduating N7 in the same class as Ashley. She had been the first soldier Ash had requested for her team. Unfailingly loyal and unshakably calm, the whole team relied on her to be the immovable center, the all seeing guardian angel protecting them with deadly shredder rounds whenever the enemy was all around.

Specialist Ikon 'Slow' Burras was a Salarian STG tech with a nose for intel. She had witnessed this nose at Virmire, where he hacked his way through the main gate with codes that he ripped from the memory core of a downed geth dropship. He had been in the team for thirteen months, having turned up at their safehouse on Omega with his weapons and omnitool, requesting a spot on the team. When asked why, he had cocked his head to the side and said in that curiously slow (for a Salarian) tone, 'Missions under Captain Kirrahe seem…boring, after mission on Virmire. Have seen Operations Chief Williams in action, expect challenges will be…stimulating.'

He was also a dab hand when it came to tech attacks, Ash grinned as she remembered him taking down the shields of a YMIR mech with one blast of his omnitool. She had actually been the most welcoming of the team toward its newest recruit. In her mind, Burras was a Virmire survivor, a name on a very short list of people that had survived that hellhole. The salarian's choice of weapons was also somewhat amusing. The X-76-A Revenant SAW was an attempt by the Alliance to allow mobile fireteams greater options in small unit combat. The initial prototypes being field tested by N6 and N7 had shown promising results, the extra recoil dampers and its lighter weight compared to the original making it feasible for deployment.

Service Chief Ivan 'Red' Bondarenko was the unit's second heavy gunner and explosives expert. The hot tempered Russian had nearly been tossed out of N7 training after he had decked his chief instructor. He had only been spared the axe because of a talk he had with his survival instructor. Scuttlebutt said that this had involved him sleeping with her, but Ash took that with a grain of salt. Despite his problems with authority, he had magical fingers with explosives and a MacGyverish way of making IED's with the simplest of objects. Red was in the middle of an extranet chemistry degree, just to find more ways of making things go boom. His Revenant was equipped with heavy tungsten rounds that ripped through armour and flesh like soft butter. To top it off, he was a damn fast runner, clocking in at nine seconds on the hundred metre dash.

Serviceman 1st Class Anthony 'Doc' Blackburn was the team's newest member. He was more of a forced addition to the team. Fresh faced and eager to please, he was N6 qualified, not N7. Assigned to the team due to a crippling shortage of N7 qualified medics, Ash hadn't been pleased with Hackett's choice, but had come to understand it after seeing Doc in action. Doc was a crack shot with his custom made M-12 Locust SMG, and a damn fine medic. While he wasn't as skilled as a qualified doctor, he was effective at balancing medi-gel and painkillers, allowing Ash and her team to keep fighting despite being wounded.

'Flea', or to give him his proper name, Serviceman 2nd Class Michelangelo Leonardo DiMillio, was a marksman. Good with a sniper rifle, but better with his M-96 Mattock equipped with Armour Piercing rounds in a free fire zone with plenty of targets. The more pressure put on him, the cooler he became. With her Viper, Silk had longer reach than Flea, but he was her superior when it came down to distances of less than 600 meters. Incredibly quiet would best describe Flea. He had been at Torfan, one of the few marines left standing after Major Kyle ordered his company to charge in under enemy guns.

Ash hadn't been at Torfan, but had heard the stories. If the reports were correct, Flea had been caught up in the vicious hand to hand fighting that had taken place in one of the main bunkers. And when the fighting finished and two hundred batarian prisoners had been tossed into their own slave pens? What had Flea done when Kyle snapped and gave the order to execute the prisoners? Would he have lifted his rifle to his shoulder and blazed away with his customary accuracy? Or had he been one of the few who couldn't bring themselves to gun down unarmed prisoners? The reports didn't know, the psychologist couldn't tell and Ashley didn't particularly want to know. All she cared about was that insane accuracy. Shephard might have been able to talk about it, soldier to soldier, maybe give him some peace if that was what he was seeking, but Ash could never get him to open up.

The last card in Ash's deck was her turian. Sergeant Lekis 'Lake' Kochak was a trained scout and tracker. When his unit was stranded on an abandoned Quarian colony just inside the Perseus Veil, he had been the senior officer. The geth had hunted them until he was the last man standing. Fortunately for him, the local flora and fauna had been dextro-amino based, allowing him to run, hide and survive the geth hunter killers for almost two weeks until Ashley's unit had arrived. He had joined the team to help them complete a search and destroy mission on a geth listening post, and didn't leave once they got back to Citadel space. His transfer had never been submitted or approved, he simply stayed with them. The M-27 Scimitar shotgun he carried reflected his aggressive style of combat, getting close up to his targets and slaughtering them with multiple incendiary pellets. He kept an M-8 slung over his shoulder during missions for when he needed extra range.

All in all, a fine group of warriors. In some ways they worked even better than the Normandy crew. They had none of Wrex's anger, none of Liara's naiveté. They were friends, brothers and sisters in arms. Their teamwork was flawless. Trust had been earned over long months of danger and hardship. Ash felt a surge of pride, this was the thrill of leadership, to bring men and women at the top of their fields together and watch their skills combine and improve. She understood what Shephard must have felt when his team of misfits smashed Sovereign in the face.

By the look of Shephard's new team though, he was going to need every ounce of his charisma. She had only gotten a brief look at the two he had with him on Horizon. The tattooed woman next to him looked like she was a few thermal clips short of a bandolier. Garrus…she wasn't sure what was up with Garrus. Whatever Shephard had gotten into with Cerberus, she was glad that Shephard had at least one of his old friends by his side.

She closed her eyes for a second and remembered.

HORIZON: TWO WEEKS EARLIER

The stink of dried blood, the pain from the stings of the seeker swarms. She staggers up the hill, drawing each breath deep, savoring each one as if it were her last. She drags a rifle behind her. She sees something fly overhead, but doesn't get a good look. She hears the GARDIANs firing. They must have hit something on the ship that made it release her from the pod. Could Delan have activated them? He hates working with her, but he had been in the safehouse before the attack, and if anyone on this colony could get the damn things to work, it would be the sullen engineer.

She hears the dull thump of concussion rounds, the hiss of biotics, the high pitched crack of a sniper rifle. Could it be her team? Eagle Unit was back on Terra Nova for shoreleave while she did this task for Anderson. They might have come if they had gotten suspicious of the communications blackout. She breaks into a run, seeing red and almost fainting. Her system is still trying to flush whatever the bug injected into her. But she has to help her team. She reaches the edge of the courtyard. To her left is the garrison barracks, to her right is the armory. Straight in front of her are the GARDIAN control systems. She sees a black shape unleashing streams of energy at a group of soldiers on the far side of the courtyard. She sights on her target, primes her launcher and fires a concussion round. The small grenade strikes something sensitive and an earsplitting screech bring her to her knees. She is paralyzed again, this time by pain.

When she can think again she hears the sharp ring of Delan's accent. He's ranting at somebody. Getting up she leans against the wall. She can see better now. She hears a voice, a familiar voice.

"I didn't want it to turn out this way. I did all I could, I'm sorry."

She hears other voices but pays them no attention. The last time she heard that voice, it was five minutes before her life came crashing down around her ears. Intelligence reports that she had dismissed as absurd flashed before her eyes. She breaths deeply and draws herself up to her full height. She felt like death warmed up, but she wasn't about to show it. She strode out into the courtyard, her mouth moving but her eyes fixed on the buzz cut hair, the grey and black camouflage armour, the curved scar and those familiar eyes, the color of the sea after a storm.

She practically collapses into his arms, for second believing that it has all been a bad dream, that she would wake up on the Normandy SR1 in his quarters, laughing at Joker's latest practical joke on Chakwas. Then the full weight of two years of grief and mourning slams into her and she recoils. She speaks words to him, harsh words, sees him flinch. He defends himself, trying to convince her. One part of her refuses to believe, wants to punch him out, tie him up and drop him off to Hackett and Mikhailovich for interrogation. That part speaks for a few seconds, accusing him of betrayal. Another part wants to punch him out, tie him up and take him to some far off planet where they could both be safe from the galaxy. That part gets its say as well, wanting to know why he didn't even try to contact her if he was really back from the dead. She gets herself back under control and begins to walk away as he speaks again, to anyone else it would sound like an offer, but she knows him well enough to hear it for what it is, Shephard is begging, pleading. She stops and begins to turn, wanting to run back to him and lose herself in his arms, she wants to forget everything that happened in the past two years. But she can't leave her team, can't abandon everything she's fought for, can't work with Cerberus.

She tells him to be careful, then walks off, keeping all traces of her pain out of sight. She hears the anger in his voice as he calls for a pickup. Could she blame him? Not really, no. She lets the darkness take her.

SSV EVEREST

EAGLE UNIT H-HOUR

Ash took her seat in the Kodiak. Eagle Unit was already seated. She had woken up aboard a hospital ship that had accompanied the relief vessels. Mikhailovich had wanted Ash to contact Shephard and get herself back on his crew, thankfully Hackett had decided against it. She had had two weeks to think it all over. Did she still trust him? Yes, she knew he was doing what he thought was right. Could she humble herself enough to ask for her old job back? No, she had her own team now, and a critical job that only she was qualified for. Would she fight next to him if he asked for her help? Yes, without any doubt. The final question, did she still love him? She didn't have a clue. She hadn't even looked at anyone else in that way for over two years. And it had been a long and lonely two years.

The Kodiak powered up. The dull roar of the engines was muffled as the door slammed shut. Ashley tapped sharply on the cockpit wall and the Kodiak began to lift off. Around her, the team was getting comfortable for the hour it would take them to reach the drop zone. Z pulled out a deck of cards and pulled a small board from under her chair. Red and Silk pulled out their credit chits and settled in for a game of poker. Slow and Lake watched the game with curious expressions. Doc was double checking his medi-gel canisters and Flea was reading a copy of Intergalactic Sniper Monthly. The human publication had been a hit with turian and krogan readers, and was the third most popular publication in Citadel space, the most popular being Fornax.

Ash pulled an electronic pad from her kit and stared at it. She considered trying to send a message to Shephard, Anderson had finally given her Shephard's address, but what good would it do? She could tell him she was sorry for what she said, but that grated against her pride. She could tell him to be careful, but she had already done that. Z had suggested luring him into an ambush, then stranding him and Ashley on an uncharted tropical planet. Silk had offered to infiltrate Shephard's team and neutralize any female who looked at Shephard the wrong way. Ash had politely rejected both their offers and, after waking up in an alley behind Flux the next morning, had sworn never to let either of them take her drinking ever again.

After a dozen different attempts to send a message, Ash gave up and reached into her pack. Pushing past the ration packs, she pulled a book from the bottom. 'The Completed Works of Tennyson' stared innocently at her. She opened it and flicked through the pages. She came to rest on one that she knew very well.

"Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with gods."

She shut the book slowly. Why was that passage stuck in her mind? This wasn't the most critical mission she had ever commanded. Hell, it was barely even a rescue mission. Grab the doctor, hike twelve clicks to evac birds and spend a few days in a refugee camp. It was a cakewalk, albeit a necessary one. Why did she have a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something was going to go wrong? She dismissed it as paranoia. She'd follow the ROE, stay clear of trouble. If trouble found her, she'd kick trouble's ass and send it crying to its parents. She was N7, and she was a Williams. It was what she did.

I consider N6 to be the rough equivalent of US Army Rangers, Australian Commandos and Marine Force Recon. Elite soldiers operating as the sledgehammer in military engagements. N7 would be the SAS (Aussie/British), SEALs, Delta's, Spetznatz, etc, being the scalpel.


	4. High Altitude Low Opening

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Four: High Altitude Low Opening

Render unto Bioware and Universal what belongs to Bioware and Universal.

CROSS SPECIES COLONY: NEW AFRICA.  
UT-47 KODIAK DROPSHIP  
CALLSIGN: FOEHAMMER

"Five minutes out guys," Pulaski spoke to the N7 unit in the back of his bird. "Check your gear and get ready to jump."

"Roger that Hammer," Ash pulled the charging handle on her M8, slipping a thermal clip into the breech. She collapsed the rifle and clipped it onto her back plates. "Moment of truth boys and girls. Check your oxygen, it's a long drop."

In unison the team pulled on drop goggles and rebreather masks. Final weapons checks were conducted, a well rehearsed chorus of preparatory clicks and snaps. Silk held out her hand to Z, who grudgingly deposited a handful of credit chits into it. The poker game had run heavily in the sniper's favour.

Ash reactivated the intercom to the pilot. "Thanks for the ride Foehammer, see you in twelve hours if all goes well. Watch your tail on the way out."

"Gotcha Chief, don't look back," Pulaski offered a silent prayer as he opened the gull wing doors on both sides. "God be with you."

Ash stood by the starboard door for a few seconds, feeling the icy wind against her face, then hurled herself out the door. She performed a graceful somersault in mid air, and then streamlined herself, diving towards the surface beneath her. In rapid succession, her team followed, forming into a loose formation that would be harder for ground fire to identify and shoot.

As the final trooper dropped out of sight, Pulaski sealed the doors and angled his bird back up into the atmosphere. He had twelve hours to return to the Everest, refuel, get some rack time and be at LZ Alpha to pick up Williams and her unit. He brushed the stylized Wedge Tailed Eagle sewn onto the side of his flight suit. They had made him an honorary member of the unit as a reward for him pulling them out of an extremely delicate situation on Ilium. He tried to reassure himself, it was just a twelve hour deployment, when Silk got back, he could claim his half of the credits she had taken of Z due to him reading every card in Z's hand with the internal camera and feeding it through Silk's visor.

LBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB

Ash dropped like a stone, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She felt like screaming with exhilaration. Red thought she was an adrenaline junkie, he was probably right. After dropping way too many times in the Normandy's MAKO, she had become hooked on the lighter than air sensation that came with high altitude drops. 'You have to enjoy the little things in this job,' she thought back to her conversations with Joker. 'Or you'll end up like Pressly.' She tried to push away the memories of the pranks she and Joker had pulled on the stoic navigator. Images of Pressly's outraged face when they finally pushed him too far flashed through her mind.

'Although smuggling a turian stripper into the Executive Officer's quarters might be considered funny by some,' Shephard's voice had been level as he addressed the ship through the intercom from his quarters. 'It disrupts the cohesion, morale and professionalism that allows this crew to operate at maximum capacity. Rest assured, the culprits will be caught and dealt with harshly.'

Liara had informed her later on that Chakwas had been summoned to the Commander's quarters to administer medi gel and painkillers. Shephard had finished his speech, and then laughed hysterically for nearly ten minutes, re-opening one of his fresh wounds from Feros.

Just before they reached one thousand feet, Ash felt a hand brush her shoulder. Twisting her head, she saw Z violently stabbing her hand at the rapidly approaching ground. Switching the optics in her goggles to thermal vision, Ash saw clustered groups of white hotness by the side of a lake. Calm Wind mission certainly looked idyllic, then a second group of heat caught her eye. Roughly three hundred individual signatures were moving fast over rough terrain. She estimated them to be about twenty kilometers away from the mission. This was not good. If there were rebel troops moving towards her target, then they'd have to move fast to avoid being caught. On top of that, they'd need to take extra precautions when securing the doctor. The forces they had their eyes on could be reinforcements for troops already inside the camp.

The timer clicked down to zero as they hit three hundred feet. The canopy of her main 'chute deployed easily and Ash began to glide. They would touch down roughly two kilometers from the mission, and then move fast along the river bank. Ash became doubly glad of the new silencers. If troops were already in the camp, then stealth would be the best option for retrieving the doctor.

The ground approached quickly, she lifted her feet up and glided to a smooth finish on the sandy beach of a river. Detaching the sheet, she rolled it up and stowed it back in the casing. Picking up a heavy rock she slipped it inside, then tightly pulled the straps. After completing these preparations, she tossed the parachute into the river, where it sank like a stone. Simultaneous with the splash of her chute was a much heavier splash as Lake came crashing into the river. Doc and Slow scrambled into the water to fish out the turian. The rest of the team grinned a little as the wet, indignant turian waded out of the river.

"Nobody speaks of this to anyone, for any reason," Lake muttered under his breath as he tightened his gear, he had no need to dispose of his parachute anymore.

With parachutes and crash helmets disposed of, the team formed into a single file and began to move quickly through the thick jungle, Lake finding them a more or less straight path. It was a forty five minute hike to the mission, Ash wanted to get there before first light.

LBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB

CALM WIND MISSION.

POPULATION: 78.

0400 HOURS-LOCAL TIME.

A young human woman walked although the group of ramshackle buildings. There were eight roughly constructed hooches, then the two main buildings. When the elcor missionary Herat first came to New Africa, his wish had simply been to spread his religion. Nobody had exactly figured out what that religion was, because in the five years he had spent on the surface, he had been too busy organizing shelter, food, water and medical supplies for the people that came to him for help. No one came to Calm Wind hungry, thirsty, or in need of medical treatment and left without them. Herat had been joined, shortly after he started, by an elderly human nurse called Sister Genevieve. She had been the one who rounded up enough strong hands, along with tools, to construct the rough wooden hospital and supply building. Doctor Ipald had come a few years later, the hanar doctor had just graduated from the Citadel Medical College, and was eager to apply his skills where they would be most useful.

Anoka came to a halt by the side of the river and, singing softly to herself, reached down to fill a bucket with water. She frowned as she saw a disturbance underneath the water then opened her mouth to scream as a pair of nightmarish figures broke from underneath the surface. Before the scream made it out of her mouth, a gloved hand slapped itself across her face and she felt an arm wrap around her neck. A soft woman's voice whispered in her ear.

"Shh, shh, shh," the voice whispered. "It's okay. Are there any soldiers here? Any rebel soldiers here?"

Anoka shook her head furiously. "You sure? Are you sure?" A desperate nod conveyed her answer. "Can you take me to Doctor Lina Harrik? You know who she is?" More nodding followed.

"Ok, I'm gonna take my hand off your mouth, then we're going to go to her," the fingers moved away from her mouth and moved her around to face the main buildings. "Lead me to her."

Unable to stop sniffling with fear, Anoka began to walk toward the hospital, still aware of the vicelike grip on her arm. She heard the woman talking again. "Z, we're moving up, form a perimeter. Doc, with me."

A young man wearing a black bandana around his dark hair moved up beside them. He was dripping wet from the river. Anoka saw several more shapes in dark clothing moving to surround the camp. Either militia, raiders or Alliance, she guessed. Both the squad leader and the one she called 'Doc' were wearing black and green facepaint that broke up the shape of their faces, giving them almost alien appearances.

She whimpered slightly as they came up to the door of the one story wooden building. Doc opened the mosquito wire door and peered inside. Moving a few steps inside, he swept the main room with his SMG, looking for targets. Seeing nothing threatening, he turned his head back to the woman holding Anoka's arm. "Clear."

They walked down the aisle in between the rows of beds, the sound of Anoka's gentle sobs and the hushing sounds coming from her escorts mingling with the moans of the wounded. Males and females of varying species lay in the cots and beds. Some were missing arms and legs, bloody bandages covering the stumps, others were shaking with fevers, wounds from incendiary and shredder rounds were also prevalent. The war had ripped a bloody hole in the civilian populace. Anoka noticed that while the man looked slightly sick at the sight, the woman's did not break from its grim determination.

They reached the end of the aisle, where a pair of canvas sheets isolated a small portion of the room. The soldiers brought up their weapons and whipped aside the sheets to reveal an asari, a human and a hanar operating on a young turian male. "Doctor Harrik, these soldiers are here to see you." Anoka broke down sobbing as she rushed around the operating table. Sister Genevieve quickly wrapped an arm around the young woman, trying to calm her down.

"Doctor Harrik, I'm Operations Chief Williams with the Alliance Navy. I'm here to get you and your people out," Ash lowered her rifle as she looked at the Asari maiden. She had gotten to know a bit about Asari maidens in a few of the discussions she had had with Liara. While most maidens chose to join Commando units, mercenary groups, work as strippers or simply tour the galaxy, some, like Liara, chose to use their education to do worthwhile work.

"This one is curious as to what the other one is talking about, this one is in the middle of surgery," Doctor Ipald flashed pink for a second, signifying some kind of annoyance.

"I don't think you realize what's about to happen," Ash had hoped this would go smoother. "Are you a doctor, are you one of the doctors?" She looked at Sister Genevieve. "Are you the nurse ma'am?"

"Yes, yes I am," Sister Genevieve was flustered and it showed.

"I need you to get your things packed and get ready to get out of here now," Ash had no time for debate, the more time they spent talking, the less time they would have for walking. "We've got a long…

"Operations Chief," Harrik cut over Ash's voice. Brown eyes stared at Ash over the top of a sterilized operating mask. "Get those weapons out of my operating room! You are frightening my staff! I'll be with you when I'm done and not a moment before. Now please, wait outside."

Ash slung her rifle under her shoulder. "Your staff should be frightened ma'am. Do you have any idea what's going to happen to you and these other doctors when the rebel forces get here?"

They glared at each other in silence for several seconds. Ash could see she was getting nowhere. "Doc, maybe you can help them out."

Doc collapsed his SMG and stowed it at his side. "Ma'am, may I assist?" he asked politely.

"Are you a doctor," Harrik didn't take her eyes of Williams.

"No, I'm a medic ma'am."

"Can you seal a bullet wound?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah he's sure," Ash interrupted the exchange. They needed to move now and more conversation was just wasting valuable time. Harrik glared at her for a second, then turned to Doc. "Take over for me. We've taken care of the infection, now we just need to close him up."

=What's the situation= Z's voice came over Ash's earpiece. =We're just taking our good old time here.= Ash returned.

=I'd suggest hurrying them up Chief, we've only got two hours till daylight.=

Doc took Harrik's place behind the operating table, extending his hands as Sister Genevieve ran a field sterilizer over them. "Alright Chief Williams, I'm all yours," Harrik maintained her tone as she walked toward the hospital's front door, pulling of her mask and gloves.

Ash's patience was starting to wear thin. "Hurry up Doc," Ash followed Harrik out the door. Harrik was waiting for her on the verandah, wiping a layer of seat of her face with an old rag.

"I assume you have some sort of plan to get us all out of here?"

"Yes I do, come with me please. We've got a twelve click hike to make the rendezvous with the dropship. Get your things together but pack light," Ash gave a series of hand signals to Silk, who was perfectly concealed in the bushes. The sniper rose and began to move in the direction Ash indicated. =Z, bring your perimeter up, keep Flea in place.=

Maybe Harrik needed an explanation for the haste? Ash knew that she would want one if she was in the doctor's place. "We spotted a rebel company outside Yolingo on the way in. They're moving fast, so I have to assume they'll be here by nightfall if not sooner."

"Chief, I'm responsible for over seventy people here, more than half of them seriously wounded," Harrik had to walk a little faster than Williams to keep up with the Chief's longer stride. Ash shook her head. "My orders are to evacuate foreign citizens only."

"What does that mean?" Harrik demanded.

"It means non-colonial personnel ma'am," Williams kept walking as Harrik drew to a stop. "Then we have a problem Operations Chief, I will not leave without the colonial personnel."

Williams halted with a sigh. Turning around, she walked back to the Asari. "Doctor Harrik, we're here to get you out. Now I suggest you go find the missionary, go find the doctors, get your things packed and get ready to move. This jungle is filling up with rebel troops, when they get to this mission they will kill everything they see, including privileged Asari doctors. What part of that do you not understand?"

"The closest safe zone is only forty kilometers away," Lina snapped back. "You could fly all of them out in half an hour."

"I can't do that ma'am, it'd just risk evac birds. My orders are very clear, evacuate the missionary, the nurse and the two doctors. Now please, get your gear and prepare for the march out," Ash was getting increasingly annoyed by the doctor's attitude.

"What about those who can walk? We could take them out on foot," the message finally seemed to be getting across, Williams was happy to press her point.

"They are not my responsibility, you are my responsibility."

Doctor Harrik snapped, she stormed past Ash snarling a few words in a language that Ash assumed was Thessian. She grimaced slightly, the dossier on Lina had neglected to mention that she was as stubborn as a mule. In front of the second building, an Elcor slow walked out, looking curiously at the scene in front of him.

"You're right Chief, it is not your problem, it is my responsibility. And I will not leave without my people."

Ash wondered why she couldn't just complete a mission without running into complications. She looked at Z, who simply shrugged her shoulders. "Alright doctor, give me a minute."

"A minute?" the asari looked at her suspiciously.

"That's right," Ash returned quietly. "Sixty seconds. I suggest you use that time to go talk to the missionary."

Lina slowly turned and began to run to the main building. Ashley turned to Z. "Get command on the horn."

Z pulled a handset from the long range communications gear she had strapped to her back. For global and orbital transmissions, the standard issue throat mikes worked fine. To contact the Everest, further out in the system, they needed extra signal power.

"Eagle Two to Nest, Eagle Two to Nest," Z prayed to the Goddess that the new seals on the gear had protected the sensitive equipment.

SSV EVEREST: TACTICAL COMMUNICATIONS CENTRE

Rear Admiral Mikhailovich drank the terrible coffee that was standard aboard all Alliance ships. He glared jealously at Admiral Hackett, who was sipping a cup of his own personal Jamaican blend. If he had been back on his flagship with the 63rd Scout Flotilla, he would have access to his own coffee supply, but Hackett had insisted on Mikhailovich being onboard the Everest to help co-ordinate Operation UPPERCUT.

"Come on Steve, you can spare a few grains for a friend."

"Ivan, we don't get back to Arcturus for at least a month, and I've only got about a quarter of a jar left," Hackett gazed at the screen in front of him. There hadn't been a word from Eagle Unit so far. "So I'm going to say no."

=Eagle Two to Nest, Eagle Two to Nest,= Hackett leaned forward and spoke to the communications ensign. "Patch Gunnery Chief Kaethon through to my terminal Ensign."

=Eagle Two, this is Nest go ahead, over.=

=Hold for Eagle One.=

CALM WIND MISSION

Z passed Ash the handset. =Eagle One to Nest, yeah we got a problem here Admiral.=

=Have you found the Doctor?= Hackett's voice demanded.

=Yeah, we got her, but the good doctor wants to bring seventy people at the mission along with her.=

=You can't help those people Chief= Hackett had already made his decision. If the team stopped to help out every single person along the road, it only increased the danger of them getting caught. =Do you under stand me?=

=I understand sir,= Ash knew what his response was going to be, but a plan was already forming in her mind. =I'll handle it. Eagle One out.=

Returning the headset to Z, she looked at Lina. The doctor was in a quiet conversation with the elcor and the girl from the riverbank. Ash mentally prepared herself for another bout with the Asari, and then raised her hand. "Doctor Harrik?" she called out, beckoning with her palm.

The doctor broke off her conversation and ran to them. "Ok doctor, you win. Get your people together, we leave in an hour."

Lina looked suspicious. "And there will be dropships for them as well?"

"Yes ma'am. We can only take those who can move under their own power though," Ash kept a straight face, hoping the camouflage paint on her face would make it harder for the Asari to tell she was lying.

The suspicion on Lina's face turned to relief. "I understand, thank you Chief."

"Tell your people to pack enough food and water for two days, they may need it when they reach the safe zone. Now hurry please," Lina nodded and ran back toward the hospital.

Red moved up beside Ash, his black and grey Revenant swinging by its strap. "Why don't we get Doc to tranque her the f*** out?" he suggested hopefully.

"That's a great idea Red, drug and kidnap the daughter of one of the Alliance's best friends," Ash resisted the urge to smack the impetuous Russian on the back of the head.

"Not even sure this b**** is worth all the effort," Red wasn't one to let go of an argument.

"The doctor is the mission Red, stick with her."

"And we're taking all these people out?" Red didn't believe a word of what she had told the doctor. And he wanted to make sure that she knew he knew. Ash didn't have time for it.

"Get going soldier," her tone was harsher than it should have been, but she wanted to get her mission back on track and Red wasn't helping.

Red grunted and followed the doctor. Z looked at Ash, reproach actually in her voice as she spoke. "What did Admiral Hackett say?"

"What the hell do you think he said," Ash brought her rifle back up and walked off toward Silk's post.

Z shook her head as she reached for her throat mike. "Let's see some hustle. Wake these people up and clear these hooches."

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Love it? Hate it? Tell me in the comments.


	5. Up Close and Personal

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Five: Up Close and Personal

I own nothing, etc.

CALM WIND MISSION.  
NEW AFRICA.  
0600 HOURS LOCAL TIME.

The sun crested the edge of the lake, lighting it up with a fiery glow as the first rays of light struck the mission. The elcor missionary walked through the hospital. He stopped by the bed of one of the more badly wounded humans.

"Hopeful reassurance: Your wounds seem to be improving. You should be fine by the end of the week," Herat couldn't do much for any of the patients, most of the medical supplies had already been used, but he could make them comfortable and give them some peace.

Flea moved into one of the hooches, "It's okay everyone, just move outside with the others. Do you have everything?"

The marksman's soft tone was helping with some of the refugees more reluctant to leave the mission. It had taken an extra hour to get the twenty four civilians up and ready to leave. The rest were too badly wounded to be easily moved.

Z and Ash stood by the side of the lake. Williams checked her watch. "Only nine hours left till we have to rendezvous with the bird," she looked behind her to see some of the refugees carrying bulky travel bags. "Get onto Flea, pass the word to only bring what they can easily carry."

"Roger that," Z relayed the order through her mike. Ash disengaged her night operating scope from the top of her M-8 and stowed it in one of her pouches. "Where's the missionary?"

"Says he isn't coming, Sister Genevieve is staying as well," Z shrugged her shoulders. "Hackett did say they only had to leave if they wanted to."

Ash looked back at the hospital. The elcor was saying his goodbyes to the hanar and Doctor Harrik. "We'll see each other again," Lina promised Sister Genevieve. "Be careful."

Z had her electronic map out. "Lake's found us a good path, should lead us to the pickup zone. Not the most direct route, but the easiest one with all the young and old we've got travelling with us. This might take longer than nine hours Chief."

"Can't be helped, we wanna get the doc to the bird, we take these people along with us," Ash put her hand back to her throat. "Lake, take us out of here, but don't run away."

Z turned to face the column of refugees, "Ok, Flea, Slow, get 'em moving."

The civilians began to walk, those still healthy carrying those too young to move easily through the dense jungle. Anoka carried a young Asari child out of the hospital. "Sister Genevieve, the mother just died."

Sister Genevieve took the child. The elderly woman felt tears gather at her eyes. "Lina, you have to take this child, it's the only chance she has."

Lina nodded and held the baby close. She and Doctor Ipald began to move into the column of civilians as the marines began to call for them to keep moving. Doctor Ipald stopped suddenly, then turned around and floated back toward the hospital. "Where are you going?" Red walked up the hanar. "We gotta move now."

"This one cannot leave its patients without proper medical care," Ipald said slowly. "This one will stay."

"What's the problem?" Ash walked over. "We have to leave."

"This one will stay," Ipald replied, more firmly this time.

Ash stared at him for a few seconds. "Your choice," she shrugged and began to walk away.

The three missionaries moved back into the hospital. Lina and Z moved to join the rear of the column. Ash and Red paused to look back at the mission. The elcor turned and stared at them. "Encouraging blessing: Go with God!"

Ash turned and began to walk, "God already left New Africa," she muttered under her breath.

Red adjusted his weapon straps, "You got that right." The ragtag group of refugees and soldiers disappeared into the bush.

LBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB

HANKASH JUNGLE.

1215 HOURS LOCAL TIME.

7 KILOMETRES FROM LZ ALPHA.

The single file of refugees moved through thick trees. Lake, Z, and Flea were on point, Slow, Silk and Doc mingled within the civilians, Ash and Red brought up the rear. For the past ten minutes the refugees had begun singing. Ash didn't know the language, but Z had been nodding in time with the music, so she assumed it was an asari song. Lake reached a twelve foot cliff face, the turian easily scrambled up it, then turned around and dropped a lightweight cord back down. As Flea and Silk began assisting the refugees in scaling the obstacle, Z moved back toward Ash.

"Only five clicks out Chief, still seven and half to LZ Alpha," Z showed Ash the map. "Three hours, then Foehammer's going to be at the drop zone."

"We go any slower we'll start going backwards in time," Ash activated her mike. =Red, what you got back there?=

=Five stragglers, thirty meters and falling from the main body.= Red took off his cap and wiped a layer of sweat from his brow. The thick jungle canopy protected them from the worst of the sun's heat, but the humidity was rising fast.

=Roll 'em up ASAP.=

"Roger that," Red moved to touch one of the refugees. "Ma'am, we need to speed up? Understand, we need to move fast…"

The woman recoiled from his touch and quickly moved past him. Red stared after her. An elderly man patted him on the shoulder. "It is the guns that frighten her, my son. We are all very grateful for your help."

A knot began to form in Red's stomach. He brushed the hand of his shoulder. "Just make sure you keep up, we're falling behind schedule."

LBLBLB

TWO HOURS LATER.

SIX KILOMETRES FROM LZ ALPHA.

The column moved deeper into a valley. It was blessedly cool, but Ash was worried about the lack of visibility. "Silk, move up on the ridge, Lake, move up further, see what you can find."

Some of the colonists were beginning to sway on their feet, unused to walking for so long. Ash paused to help a turian, Lina walked up beside her. "We need to stop. Chief, we need to stop now."

"I heard you," Ash began walking toward the rear. "We can't stop, we're too far behind schedule."

"These people need to rest, and we have a child that needs medication," the doctor's stubbornness resurfaced. Ash didn't pay her any attention. "Let's go doctor."

Harrik rejoined the column, muttering under her breath. Z came up next to Ash. "What do you want Chief?"

Ash couldn't deny the facts. There wasn't enough time to get to the drop zone for the scheduled pickup. The colonists were tired and would only get more so. "We rest for thirty, we walk till nightfall, we hole up for the night, and then we get to the drop zone in the morning. Relay that to command."

=Lake, hold it up and set up a perimeter,= Ashley didn't like changing plans on the fly. It meant that schedules and timetables went out the window. Z activated the comms. =Eagle Two to Nest. Come in Nest, over.=

SSV EVEREST.

Hackett closed the frequency. Mikhailovich came up the steps. "What did Eagle want?"

Steve shook his head in frustration. "They were slowed down too much by the refugees they got saddled with. They can't get to the rendezvous point on time. Tell Foehammer to stand down, he'll have to go get them in the morning."

"Can't we send extra dropships for the rest of the refugees?" the thought of leaving human civilians to die grated on Mikhailovich's sense of honor.

"What dropships?" Hackett was surprised at how bitter he sounded. "We lost five more trying to evacuate Kalesh City this morning. Every time we try sending in birds in force, they get blasted out of the sky. Foehammer's bird is the only one with a chance of making it through. We send any others, we lose them as well."

NEW AFRICA

Lake crawled forward through the damp foliage, once he was satisfied he had the best field of view, he activated the motion trackers he had placed to his front and his sides.

=Okay Chief, get comfortable, we're secure.=

The refugees took seats, taking out water and food. A father rocked his daughter back and forth, trying to comfort her as Lina injected a blue fluid into the child's leg. "Don't worry Mika, the medicine will make you well," Lina stroked the girl's face. "Be brave." The tiny face nodded solemnly, though tears still streaked her face.

The sound of branches snapping and the motion tracker chirping was the only warning Lake had before shadowy figures began moving past his well camouflaged position. Speaking in an almost inaudible voice, Lake commed Williams. =Chief, we got a batarian foot patrol, platoon strength, on our path, moving straight towards you.=

Williams grabbed Lina by the arm and roughly pulled her away from the group. "Listen to me, we've got danger on the trail…Listen!" she hissed as Lina turned to look at the track. "Get everyone into the bushes, then you need to do everything you can to keep that baby quiet. Whatever it takes. Go now!"

The refugees picked themselves up and scuttled for cover in the darkness and the shadows. Lake got down lower in the mud, =Danger close, Chief= he growled. =These guys are loaded for thresher.=

The batarians began to move through the area where the refugees had been seated a few seconds previously. They were talking in low voices, several were smoking cigarettes. Further back along the trail, Slow and Flea pushed the last of the colonists into a flowing stream and threw themselves after them. Up on the ridge, Silk sighted on what appeared to be an officer. If the batarians were actually being observant, then the obvious signs of activity would alert them to the presence of refugees.

Red was lying flat on his back, his M-5 Phalanx pistol trained on the path a few feet from his position. A child coughed behind him and a small whine came from the baby with the injection. "Shh," he put his hand to his own mouth, a firefight now would be very inconvenient, civilian casualties would be heavy. The father put his hand lightly over his daughter's mouth, muffling the sound of her cries.

A batarian paused as he heard a cough, then turned to face the bushes they were hiding in. Z's hand tightened around her M-15's trigger. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder. The baby stopped crying as she drifted off to sleep. Z exhaled as the batarian's companion laughed at him and began to move off.

Silk watched as the last batarian moved away Flea's position. =You're clear=

The marines began to move from various hiding spots, then turning to help the colonists from their own. Lake shifted from his observation point, then whipped his head around as he saw a batarian walk past him no more than two meters away. =Chief, straggler, danger close.=

Lina walked up onto the track, then saw movement to her left. She locked eyes with a batarian, then the four eyed alien swore and lifted its weapon. A dark shape wrapped its arm around the batarian's face and a combat talon drove into its neck. The batarians scream was muffled against the crook of Ash's elbow as she waited for the alien in her arms to stop struggling. She looked over the shoulder of her kill at Lina who was staring at her with a look of pure horror.

The batarian's eyes rolled up in his head as he fell to the ground. Lake and Ash seized his arms and dragged him further into the bushes. Lake appeared a few seconds later, running back to observation post to find any other stragglers that might be coming.

Ash came out behind him, wiping the batarian's blood off on her fatigue trousers. Lina couldn't stop staring as the green blood of the batarian disappeared off the blade, revealing the dull black color of the Alliance talon. Ash returned her blade to its sheath on her chest, then gave a nod to someone behind Lina. Slow came up beside the doctor. "We can go now ma'am." The asari's brown eyes met the Salarians black ones. The salarian didn't blink. "Now is good ma'am, go."

Williams looked back at the body of the batarian. He hadn't had a shield harness, but his weapons were expensive and new. She debated taking them, but decided against it, more weight would slow them down. =Lake, take us out of here before they realize they're a tail gunner light. Go one kilometer then find us a safe place to rest.=

"Wait," Lina appeared beside Williams. "They're going to the mission. You have to stop them."

"I can't do that," Williams turned and began to walk. Lina followed her. "It'd risk the safety of you, my men and the rest of these people. Besides, they may bypass the mission."

"You know they won't!" Lina hissed in frustration as she grabbed William's arm.

Ash stared at the hand gripping her. "There are many possible scenarios that could happen Doctor Harrik. I don't presume to know them all. Red?"

"Ma'am?"

"Stay with the doctor, make sure she stays safe," Ash removed Lina's hand. "Let's go doc, come on."

For once the Asari didn't argue, she simply fell in line. Ash felt a stab of sympathy for the doctor, they both knew what was going to happen to all the wounded at the mission, but there was nothing either of them could do to help them.

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2200 HOURS LOCAL TIME.

4 ½ KILOMETRES TO LZ ALPHA.

Most of the children had fallen asleep the moment they had stopped in the well concealed clearing just outside the valley. Lake had found a spot that was sufficiently distant from the track that a group of rebels moving along wouldn't be able to find them without a search. Lina and Doc went from person to person, taking care of blisters and sore ankles. The chirping of birds and the screech of the occasional pyjak were the only sounds to be heard. Finally assured that they had found a safe place, Ashley sat down by the side of a small creek and removed her boots and socks. A sigh of relief escaped her lips as the cool water washed away the soreness of a full days march.

Picking up her rifle she began to field strip it. Although she hadn't yet fired a shot, the conditions that they had been operating in might have been enough to damage some of the parts. Satisfied that it was working, she reinserted the ammo block, racked a thermal clip into the chamber, put the safety back on and set it beside her. She heard soft footfalls behind her, Doctor Harrik took a seat beside her, pulled off her own boots and put her feet into the water beside Ashley's.

"Can't you sleep Operations Chief? I never thought I'd see a big tough human marine dipping her toes in the water," Lina sounded exhausted, the defiant tone in her voice subdued. Ash couldn't blame her. They had walked for nearly twelve straight hours, mildly tiring to a marine, but exhausting to the average civilian. Ash had a grudging admiration for the young asari, instead of joining her childhood friends in seeing all the wonders of the galaxy, she had armed herself with the best medical education money could buy and then willingly volunteered to go to a planet where death might lurk at every corner. 'Too bad,' her cynical side spoke up. 'She didn't bring some bodyguards or hire some mercenaries.'

"It's my watch in a few minutes ma'am," Ash maintained an even tone of voice. "And it doesn't hurt to enjoy the little things in this job."

"I suppose not," Lina was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke again it was in a gentle tone of voice. "You can call me Lina if you like. All the servants at my mother's estate always called me ma'am, one of the reasons I wanted to come here, where everyone's equal."

It was an olive branch, one that Ash considered taking. Removing her feet from the water, she used her scrim net to dry her feet, then slipped her socks back on. "Doctor Harrik, I suggest you get some rest."

"I think I will," the softness was gone, but the defiance was also absent. "Thank you for saving my life."

Ash finished lacing her boots, then shook her head. "It wasn't about saving your life, it was about getting the job done, completing the mission…that's all."

Lina looked at her with disappointment in her eyes, then stood up and walked back toward the clearing. Ash picked up her rifle and went to relieve Silk. She hadn't rejected the truce out of any sense of self-righteousness, it would simply complicate the events that needed to take place in the morning.

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Man, I cannot stop writing, even though my university application exam is in three days. Curse you fanfiction, curse you!


	6. Shall Good Men Do Nothing?

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Six: Shall Good Men Do Nothing?

I own not Bioware, neither bread for a meal, nor sandals for my feet.

CALM WIND MISSION

0900 HOURS LOCAL TIME

MISSION DAY 2

Sister Genevieve finished wrapping the fresh bandage around her patient's head. "That's the last of the supplies Doctor Ipald," Genevieve could not quell a flash of despair. "We have nothing left."

"This one urges the other one not to give up hope," Ipald patted Genevieve on the shoulder with one of his tentacles. "Once Lina reaches the safe zone, she will surely send back help for these ones still at the mission."

Genevieve smiled at her friend. "You have a good heart Doctor."

"Unfortunately, this one's blood pumping organ has always been somewhat weak, but this one appreciates the other one's sentiment," Ipald opened the door of the hospital and floated outside. Genevieve turned back to Herat and was about to speak when gunshots rang out across the mission. She spun around as the door was flung open and a dozen batarians and turians stormed into the hospital with their weapons raised. Behind them she could see the small shape of Doctor Ipald lying on the ground, blood surrounding the frail body.

"Indignant accusation: This is a place of healing, we have no soldiers, only sick people," Herat lumbered forward, only to be struck to the ground by multiple rifle butts. The rebels pointed their weapons at the wounded. Despite his bulk, Herat managed to get back on his feet in time to face a batarian and a turian. While the other soldiers were dressed in rough brown and black overalls, these two were dressed in high quality hardsuits, and while Genevieve had been cut off from civilization for a while, she recognized the blue and white symbol of the Blue Suns. Any hope that she had left disappeared. She began to pray.

Herat was forced down onto his stomach. "Desperate plea: Commander, we have no soldiers here. Please, we are just healers, not fighters."

The sound of screams coming from outside started a fire burning in Genevieve's heart. Slipping her hand onto a table next to the bed, she deftly picked up a scalpel. One of the batarians had his back turned to her. She knew there was a sensitive spot just behind the left ear of every batarian, a weak spot in the skull. Gathering her courage, she prepared to strike.

The batarian Blue Sun smiled slightly at Herat's pleas, which would be desperate to an elcor, but sounded completely monotone to the others. "Finish quickly," he instructed his partner as he turned on his heel. "Fearful begging: Please commander, don't do this, please no!"

The turian lifted his shotgun until it was pressed against Herat's head. Genevieve lifted her arm and struck as the hospital erupted into weapons fire.

0915 HOURS MISSION TIME

LANDING ZONE ALPHA

N7 SOCCOM: EAGLE UNIT

A flock of birds leapt from where they had been nestling within the twisting branches of an ancient tree, squawking as something disturbed them from their rest. Doc looked up curiously as the screaming avians darted toward the mountain range. "What the f*** was that?" he said quietly.

Silk was crouching beside him. "Varren," she replied, putting her canteen back in her webbing. "Probably a varren."

A cool breeze blowing down from the mountains kept the heat and humidity low, something Ash was thankful for. They had started walking four hours ago and had made faster time on the slightly downhill slope. =Flea, Lake, status?=

Flea swept the landing zone. =Clear.=

Lake brought his binoculars down. =Clear behind us Chief. Nothing following.=

Ash tapped Z on the shoulder. "Call it in."

=Foehammer, this is Eagle Two, be advise your location over=

Foehammer held his breath as the Kodiak slipped through the hole in the LADAR screen. Letting it out, he activated his helmet mike. =This is Foehammer, my ETA on your location, ahh, five mikes over=

=Location will be marked by red phosphorus, over= Z and Lake activated the thumb switches on their smoke grenades, and then hurled them out into the clearing. The red smoke hissed out.

=I have your smoke on thermals, cutting through the cloud layer now.=

Z heard the whine of the Kodiak's engines. "Eyes on," she spoke softly as the dropship circled the landing zone.

Ash rose from the long grass, squinting slightly as the sun briefly came out from behind the clouds. The dense storm clouds had been forming all morning, it would probably only be a few hours till the rain started. Foehammer flared for landing as Ash beckoned towards the tree line where the refugees were hiding. "Slow, bring her up!"

Slow grabbed Lina by the arm. "Let's go now! You're first!" Ash called over the sound of the engines. Lina moved forward with hesitation in her step, looking backwards at the refugees. "Come on, we're late dammit."

Eagle Unit quickly ran from the tree line, falling in just behind Ash and Lina, keeping their weapons trained on the jungle as they moved toward the dropship. "Where are the other dropships," Lina began to pull away from Ashley's grip.

"They're still up in the clouds, they'll come down once you're safe," Ash kept pulling Lina toward the dropship. The asari couldn't break free. "What about my people?"

"They'll be fine, come on!"

Lina finally realized Ash's plan. "What are you doing? Stop, we can't leave."

The marines stopped moving backwards as they formed a line. Z held up her hand toward one of the refugees. "We need you stay back."

The colonists began to realize. "Let us go as well!" one of the men roared as he took a swing at Silk. She dodged the blow and shoved him onto his back.

The doors on the Kodiak swung upwards to reveal a pair of armored marines, rifles equipped with non lethal ammo, pointing at the civilians. Ash had requested them just in case the crowd became violent. "Keep your head down," Ash forced Lina forward until she was underneath the gull wing.

"Let go of me," Lina shoved Ash's hand off her arm. Her deep brown eyes were blazing with righteous anger, flicking between Ash and her marines keeping the crowd at bay. "You never planned on getting all of us out of here, did you? Did you?"

Ashley kept her calm. "My orders are to get you to that safe zone, now get on that dropship!"

"What about my people?" Lina seemed to be panicking.

"Not here for them."

"You lied to me!" Lina screamed as she slapped Ash across the face. "You lied to me!"

Ash's temper, worn thin by twenty four hours of dealing with a stubborn asari and a guilty conscience, finally snapped. She unslung her M-8 and handed it to one of the Kodiak's marines. "Liar! Coward!" Lina tried to run, Ashley grabbed her by the shoulders, picked her up and hurled her into the dropship.

"Secure the doctor," she snarled to one of the privates. Lina kept struggling, "They'll die if you leave them," she tried to wriggle out of the iron grip of the bulky marine holding her.

The crowd was becoming more rowdy as the woman they all saw as their protector was forced inside the Kodiak. Children began to cry as the adults tried to shove their way past the marines. Ash retrieved her rifle and made a final sweep of the treeline. Satisfied that there weren't any rebels hiding with rocket launchers, she lifted her hand to her throat mike, only to feel a stinging punch on her shoulder. Whipping around, she saw Lina still trying to break free, tapping into her natural biotics in the process, but unable to focus them, partly due to her anger, mostly due to having no biotic training whatsoever.

"Who decides for me?" Tears of frustration streaked the side of the young doctor's face. "You? Your government? You bastards, I won't leave them."

Ash hit her throat mike. "Alright, time to bug out. Roll back to the Kodiak."

Z patted Lake on the shoulder, then turned and scuttled toward the dropship. Lake tapped Red, Red tapped Doc, until the marines were all onboard. Ash stood up and stared back at the crowd, the women and children mostly in tears, then men glaring defiantly. Ash stepped into the Kodiak. "We're good to go Foehammer, leave the doors open though, I want to get a bid of air in here."

"I hear that," Foehammer focused on his instruments as he lifted off, keeping the gull wing doors open to allow a steady flow of air through the notoriously stuffy interior of the Kodiak, refusing to let his eyes stray to the crowd of refugees, kept at bay by the unspoken threat of his passenger's weapons. "We're going to have to circle back a little to get to the safe zone, I picked up a lot of thermals in the mountains, intel says they're AA guns. You don't mind do you?"

"Just get us there Lieutenant," Ash wasn't in the mood for a conversation. Letting her legs dangle over the sides she looked at the lush green jungle, felt the wind caress her face, and wished she were anywhere else but here.

The refugees watched the Kodiak disappear over the treetops. Some wanted to start walking immediately, to get through the mountains to the safe zone, others collapsed in a mixture of fear and confusion, most just looked at their loved ones with a sense of resignation.

Aboard the Kodiak, Lina had slumped into a seat, her face buried in her hands. Ash knew what she was feeling, having everything you cared for yanked away from you. In Lina's case however, the yanking had been done by people she assumed to be allies. Looking at her team, Ash saw resignation in each of their eyes. The absolute knowledge that nothing could be done. Then she remembered something that sent a sliver of hope to her heart. "Hey, Pulaski, when does Operation UPPERCUT begin?"

"It's been delayed," Foehammer's voice was hard, it had an edge that cut any strands of hope that the refugees may have had. "The Salarian STG teams that were supposed to sabotage the orbital defence grid were held up during insertion. They can't attack their targets till tomorrow. The fleet that the turians promised us also hasn't arrived. Admiral Hackett has postponed the landings for seventy two hours, maybe longer if the turians don't show up."

None of the team could reply, they just stared into the jungle. Ash flashed back to the moment where Shephard had decided to rescue the hostages instead of chasing the batarians during the attack on Terra Nova. Shephard had done the right thing, even though it meant letting the terrorists get away. She started to wonder what Shephard would have done in her place, then stopped immediately. She couldn't second guess herself, she had made her decision and completed the mission. That was all she needed to think about.

"Operations Chief Williams," Foehammer turned in his seat. "Starboard side ma'am, saw this on my way in."

Ash caught a glimpse of a river, then a lake, saw red stains in the water, and then…oh no.

Lina scrambled out of her seat and stared over Ash's shoulder. She saw the bodies piled in heaps, the burning buildings, the varren gnawing at the dead. She screamed, Ash had to throw up her arm to prevent the doctor instinctively throwing herself forward, desperate to find survivors, to help, to do anything. Ash knew a massacre when she saw one, a rebel force had come through and murdered every single one of the injured civilians, there wouldn't be any survivors.

"Doc," she called her medic. Blackburn gently put an arm round Lina. "Come on, ma'am."

Lina collapsed back into Doc's arms. She tried speaking but her sobbing made the words incoherent. Ashley noticed one of the varren looking up at her from the ground then, giving the varren equivalent of a shrug, returned to its meal. Leaning back, Ash took Silk's M-97, sighted on the lizard-dog and put a shredder round through its brain. She turned her head away from the mission, images of Eden Prime flashing before her eyes. She felt her chest tighten and fought to keep from throwing up.

When Ash felt like she was back in control of herself, she looked at her team. They stared back, faces unreadable. Lina leaned back into her seat, her eyes shut, although tears still leaked from the lids. Almost in a trance, Ash lifted her hand to her throat. "Foehammer, turn it around, take us back to LZ Alpha."

"Ma'am?" Foehammer couldn't believe his ears.

"You heard me," Ash was aware of the shocked looks her teams were giving her

"This is crazy, I just got you out of there, we'll be at the safe zone in twenty minutes," Foehammer protested.

"I gave you an order Pulaski, take us back there now!" Ash snapped.

"Yes ma'am," Foehammer brought the Kodiak into a gentle turn.

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The refugees had gotten back up and were slowly making their way out of the clearing. Their feet moved slowly, it was the walk of those without hope. The whine of engines caused Anoka to look up. The Kodiak swooped over their head and made a quick landing twenty meters from the refugees. Lina and the marines quickly exited the dropship. One of the children broke away from her mother and ran towards them. Lina embraced her and turned back to Ashley.

"We can only take ten people," Ash didn't look Lina in the eyes, she couldn't. "Old, young, anyone that'll slow us down goes on the dropship. We'll meet up again at the safe zone."

"God will bless you," the child, who Ashley guessed was no more than eight years old, smiled at her. Lina put the girl down, "Sarah, go tell the others."

The girl nodded and ran back to her parents. Lina looked at Ashley, "Thank you," she whispered. "Hurry, please," was the only reply Ash could make.

"Red, go with the package," the heavy gunner looked at her with a questioning expression. "Now!"

Red jogged after Lina as Z walked over to Ash. "What are you doing?"

Ash just stared at the refugees, who were quickly deciding amongst themselves who would be going. Z followed Ash's gaze and nodded. "New mission?"

"No," Ash turned away. "Same mission. Get them ready."

It took five minutes to get all seven children, plus a pregnant asari, a turian who could only walk with crutches, and an elderly human female seated safely on the Kodiak. Lina carried a tiny Asari baby over to Williams. "She has no one to care for her," she said simply. Ashley took the child and carefully handed her to the human female. "Ma'am, I need you to take this baby. Can you keep her safe?"

The white haired woman nodded seriously. "Don't fret young lady, I'll look after her as if she were my own."

Z dragged one of the mothers away from the dropship. "Don't worry ma'am, she'll be safe. You'll see her again in a few days."

The mother nodded and waved goodbye to her child. Ash banged on the side of the cockpit. "OK Pulaski, you get these guys to the safe zone. Refuel with the Everest, then come back to get us at LZ Bravo."

"Roger that ma'am," Foehammer closed the Kodiak's doors and fired up his thrusters as Ash backed away. =Don't look back.=

The Kodiak lifted off as Eagle Unit waded through the knee high grass, back onto the trail leading to Kashunga Pass. Ash watched the Kodiak disappear over the treetops and smiled with bitter irony. Before, she had been the one to disappear, now she was on the side that stayed behind.

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1030 HOURS LOCAL TIME

MISSION DAY 2

8 KILOMETRES FROM LZ BRAVO

Z's comm unit began buzzing urgently, pulling the handset from her webbing, she answered. "Eagle Two?... Wait one over."

"Yo, Chief?" Ash was leaning against a tree, taking a swig from her canteen as Z walked over to her. "The main man's on the line. Sounds ticked off."

Williams took the headset, then made a 'shoo' gesture to her 2IC (second in command). The asari grinned and turned her back to the Operations Chief. They could both smell a kicking coming down the chain of command. =Eagle One here Admiral=

Hackett paced the deck of the Everest's CIC, a headset pressed to his ear. =Soon to be Servicewoman Third Class Williams. Would you mind explaining to me why that dropship stopped at the safe zone loaded with refugees and not your criticals?=

=The doctor refused to leave without her people sir= Ash knew how thin the excuse sounded.

Hackett looked at Mikhailovich, who shrugged his shoulders. =You can't get an untrained teenager on a Kodiak?=

=She was on the bird= Ash looked at the doctor. Lina was helping a salarian up a crumbling rock face. =Look, it's difficult to explain…

=Oh come on…Hackett tried to cut in but Ashley kept speaking.

=Sir, I'm marching these people to LZ Bravo, request three dropships to take them out=

=Negative on the evac at LZ Bravo= Ash heard a sharp smack over the comm line. If she had been in the CIC she would have seen Mikhailovich rubbing the back of his hand as he moved it away from Hackett's coffee mug.

=Come on Steve, gimme two Kodiaks and I'll have these people in the safe zone by the end of the day=

=Negative= Hackett rubbed his temples. He could feel a migraine coming on. =Foehammer took a rocket in his port thruster on the way out. He made it, but it's the same all over the planet. Our birds are taking too much fire and we're no longer entering New African airspace. I'll give you all the help I can from this end, but right now you are on your own=

Ashley felt the first drops of rain tapping against her hair, then shook her head at Z. The asari mouthed a very rude word, pointing up in the sky at what they both hoped was Hackett's general direction.

Hackett sat down at one of the consoles on the CIC, he removed his duty cap and ran a hand through his buzz cut iron grey hair. =I hope you know what you're doing=

=Me too sir=

=Alright, I'll keep you advised if the situation changes, Nest out=

SSV EVEREST

"You were the one who picked her for the mission" Mikhailovich pointed out. "She's a Williams, and she's one of Shephard's. The need to save as many lives as possible is pounding in her blood and burned into her skin, no matter how much she focuses on the mission."

"That stubbornness will get her killed," Hackett growled.

"Funny, only the other day, you were saying that her tenacity and dedication would save us all in the long run," Mikhailovich flinched as Hackett glared at him.

"Get on the line to General Oraka. Tell Septimus, I want that damn attack fleet ready to assault the ground based AA guns within twenty four hours. Remind him that he still owes me big time for saving his scaly ass at the Citadel!" Hackett snarled. The junior officers standing in CIC did their best to look busy, lest the Commander of the 5th Fleet choose an unlucky ensign to vent his anger on.

NEW AFRICA

"He said negative on the evac," Ash and Z looked at each other. It was nearly thirty kilometers of rough terrain to the safe zone, burdened with civilians, still carrying full loads of weapons and ammo.

"Well, that sucks."

"Yep."

"Keep on slogging?"

"Yep."

"Wish your old boss was here?"

"Yep."

LANDING ZONE ALPHA

1300 HOURS LOCAL TIME

The Blue Suns turian lifted the smoke canister from the ground and sniffed it, then examined the scorch marks on the grass. He turned to his batarian companion. "Humans. Alliance. Some went in the dropship, others went towards the mountain."

The batarian nodded. "We follow. No need to call for reinforcements, they are only a few hours ahead of us. We'll catch them by tomorrow at the latest."

"And when we catch them?"

"We both know how much you enjoy slaughtering humans."

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To those of you that have been enquiring, I wasn't planning on bringing Shephard into the main storyline. Guys like Lycanwolff and SilverRose have done a much better job at Shep/Ash reunions than I am capable of. However, since you guys want it, I'll definitely add an epilogue featuring the Shepmeister, and possibly a sequel featuring Ash and Shep getting back together in the middle of a mission, since Bioware is taking their sweet time with a Virmire Survivor DLC. Rate and review please .


	7. Long Night of Solace

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Seven: Long Night of Solace

All mineral rights, conflict diamonds and drug money earnt by the writing of this story go to Bioware.

This one's a long one.

NEW AFRICA, LANDING ZONE BRAVO  
MISSION DAY 2  
1330 HOURS MISSION TIME.

With the weaker members of the refugee group safely out of the way, the progress was much faster than Ash had hoped for. They had covered the ten kilometers between Alpha and Bravo in four hours, a damn impressive feat for civilians. 'Although,' her inner voice had reminded her. 'Now they have double the reason to double the pace. Their kids are in that safe zone.'

Still, she had ordered a brief respite before they began the thirteen click march through the Kashunga Pass. The civilians quietly ate some of their limited food supplies, and shared their equally limited amount of fresh water. Z looked at the small water bottles, shook her head, took a fold out basin from her pack and disappeared in the direction of the sound of water. She came back a few minutes later, the basin full of water, purified by her survival supplies.

The marines broke out their MREs, some swapping their meals. It was a time honored tradition among soldiers, someone always had a type of 'rat pack' that they hated but someone else coveted. Slow and Doc scooped the brown and grey slop out of the prepackaged plastic wrappers, for a joke Silk had once swapped Doc's human rations with Slow's salarian ones. To the surprise of everyone, they had taken a liking to the other's food, and swapped their rations whenever they were issued.

Doc finished his steamed drillian lizard, looking up he saw Flea assisting an old human man open one of Flea's MREs. Doc reached into his pack and pulled out a second MRE. "Slow, gimme your chow man."

Slow finished chewing, swallowed, and then tossed Doc his other MRE. "Spaghetti bolognaise displeasing to my tastebuds, still valuable source of nutrition."

Doc walked toward the refugees, as Slow took a long drink from his canteen. An urgent beeping drew his attention to the laptop he had stowed in his equipment bag. Pulling it out, he flipped it open. "Oh."

"We're about two clicks away from the path that's going to take us to the safe zone," Lake highlighted the route. "The route we're taking is well clear of any known rebel encampments."

"Operations Chief!" Slow called out. Ash patted Lake on the shoulder. "Good job, we move out in five."

"What you got?" Ash sat next to Slow on a fallen tree trunk. Slow brought up their mission grid, he zoomed in on an area just south of their position. "One of our unmanned drones flew over about two mikes back, took thermal imagery of our whole sector. We've got a large body, about ten clicks back. They're on our bearing and closing."

"How strong?" Ash had expected something like this. A mission that went without a hitch was usually a trap. SNAFU was a phrase that all N7 operators appreciated. Situation Normal, All F***ed Up.

"That amount of heat?" Slow's skill at analyzing intelligence was something that Ash could never stop appreciating. "Gotta be company strength, maybe more. Works in our favour though, that many troops might take a lot longer to follow us over this kind of terrain."

"Rebels?"

"Could be," Slow closed the computer and slid it back into its waterproof casing. "Why would it be worth anyone's while to follow us?"

Ashley looked over at Lina, she was changing the dressing over a human's eye socket. "Don't know, but I'm going to find out. Good job, keep an eye on them."

Unslinging her rifle Ash made a beckoning gesture to Z. "We have a problem. Possible hostiles on our six, get 'em up and ready to move."

Z nodded quickly. "Roger that."

Ashley turned to where Lina was sitting. "Doctor Harrik? Could I speak to you for a second please?"

Lina rose and came to Ash, there was a look of apprehension on her face, she clearly didn't want to get dragged off again. "Do you know why anybody would be following us?"

The apprehension turned to something…Ash couldn't tell whether it was surprise or fear. "No."

"You sure?"

"Yes I'm sure."

Williams gazed at the refugees, they weren't a particularly remarkable bunch. Fourteen of them in all. A family of three salarians, eight adult humans, ranging from young Anoka to old man Keriat. One asari maiden, probably around a hundred years of age, and a tall, fit turian. The turian seemed to be staying close to the maiden, Ash would have guessed that he was her bodyguard. "Think hard doctor."

"I told you I don't know," Ashley wasn't a mind reader. If the doctor said she didn't know anything? Well, Ash would have to take that on faith. "Get your people ready to go."

"These people have been going flat out for twenty hours," Lina said quietly. There wasn't any anger this time, she was simply pointing it out. Ash considered telling her about the rebels that were tracking them, and then decided against it. Unless the doctor was an idiot, she would have realized that fact from what Ashley had asked her.

"Red, help the doctor get ready to move," Ash decided to join Lake on point for a while. The less she talked with Doctor Harrik, the happier the both of them would be.

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1430 HOURS MISSION TIME  
DA NANG FOOTHILLS

The storm that had threatened itself all day finally broke as the heavens parted and a blanket of water descended upon them. While most took the rain as yet another obstacle, Ash saw it as a sign that things were finally going her way. She had ordered Lake to sidetrack them into a small stream that had begun with the rain. It had slowed them down, but the investment of time would be invisibility to anyone tracking them.

A pyjak snapped at Lake as he stepped through the scrub. He had found an almost invisible trail used by the kaffun goats native to the planet. A swift kick sent the pyjak scrambling up a tree, chattering angrily as the turian led the refugees away from the creek. Red and Ash closed up the rear as the pyjak decided to get back to its den. Maybe when it woke up these strange intruders would be gone.

Ash wiped her face with her bedraggled scrim net, clearing away some of the cold rain obscuring her vision. She sensed a set of eye on her and turned around to face Red who was silently staring at her. The Service Chief had donned his duty cap again for some protection against the torrents of water pouring through the treetop canopy. His green eyes were deadly serious. "How are you doing?"

"What do you mean 'How am I doing'?" Ashley indicated that he should start camouflaging their exit route. Red wanted to talk about something, better it be gotten out of the way sooner rather than later.

"You know what I mean," Red took off his cap and began wiping the footprints out of the mud. "You know as well as I do that when we left that mission, those people were dead. Then we take twenty four men, women and children, and we hump for a day."

Williams could see where this was headed. She pressed her throat mike. =Z keep them moving. Be with you in a sec=

They moved further back along the track, wiping out their tracks as they went. Red bent down to pull a handful of branches behind him "We get to the LZ, and we leave them behind to die like the others."

He stood back up and turned to face her. "I'm confused, the guys are confused. You told us all when we joined the team. 'Never give a damn about anything but the mission.' It's the only rule you never break."

"Get to the point or fall in line Red," Ashley began to turn. She didn't need to be reminded of the 'at all costs' attitude she had adopted after her first N7 mission.

"Why'd you turn that bird around Chief?" the scars on Red's face couldn't hide the fact that he was youngest member of the team. Only twenty two years old, even Doc had more time in uniform than the Service Chief. Ash looked away, how could she answer a question for which she didn't have an answer.

"You can talk to me ma'am," Red snapped a capsule open and hurled it behind him. The chemicals contained in the SERE container smelled extremely powerful to varren. Any attempt to track them by scent would be thrown off. "I'm with you either way, you know that."

"Tell you what," Ash began walking again. "If I figure it out, you'll be the first to know."

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1625 HOURS LOCAL TIME

SAME LOCATION

The pyjak was woken from its nap by the sound of angry shouting. Crawling out of its den the small primate saw a larger group of those funny beings that had gone past several hours ago. The rain had stopped, but these ones were angry anyway. He saw two varren, the kind that hunted and killed his kind, running around in circles, as though unable to find anything.

"You've lost the trail you fool," the batarian Blue Sun snarled at his subordinate. "The humans anticipated us."

"It does not matter," the turian replied calmly. "The beacon among them is programmed to broadcast every five hours. They have three hours before they are revealed again, and this time they will not expect us to follow."

"They had better not," the batarian seized the tracker by the front of his armour. "Because if they evade us, I will cut you into small pieces and feed you to the varren while there is still breath in you lungs."

Fear flashed through the turians eyes. While bigger and stronger than his superior, he had no illusions about who would win in a fight. The batarian was a thousand times more vicious and a hundred time as determined. He began to search through the bushes. Maybe he could find a trail after all.

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1630 HOURS MISSION TIME

ASARI SETTLE MENT: WARM EMBRACE

KASHUNGA PASS

Even inside the pass, the thick jungle pressed in on all sides. Lina had told Ashley that there was an asari settlement at a clearing inside the valley. Hopefully, the asari could provide them with some directions, maybe even an escort of commandoes. Ash had requested another flyover from the recon drones from Hackett. The drones were still being refueled, but he promised that they'd be in the air as soon as possible. Lake and Red were both confident that the rebels following them wouldn't be able to pick up their trail again, but Ashley wasn't taking any chances.

The smell of smoke was her first indication that something was wrong, then she heard a series of muffled snaps. Lake's voice came over her earpiece. =Chief, you're going to want a look at this=

Ash ran forward twenty meters until she could see through the treeline. Lake was standing on a ledge overlooking a set of neat buildings, some prefabricated, others 'natural' constructs favored by Asari settlers. She saw fires, and heard the unmistakable sound of weapons fire. Sprinting back to the main body she grabbed Lina. "Doctor Harrik, we're going to rest here for a minute. Stay down in these trees, listen to my men."

Lina nodded, something in Ashley's face telling her that this wasn't a good time to argue. Williams thumbed her throat mike. =Z, Flea, on me. Red keep watching our rear=

The three marines joined Lake on the ridge line. "What you got Lake?"

The turian passed Ashley his binoculars. "Some of Yokupu's finest doing some racial cleansing. They must have hit fast, there's no signs of any fighting."

Ash lifted the binoculars to her eyes and examined the village. Everywhere there was death. A human was carrying an asari out of a burning hut, only to be gunned down by a pair of batarians walking past them. A human wriggled out of the grasp of his captors and ran towards the jungle, a bullet caught him between the shoulder blades. Ashley couldn't look anywhere without seeing more executions.

"How strong?" Ashley was surprised at the even tone in her voice. She felt a fury unlike anything she had ever experienced building up in her chest. She had witnessed the geth slaughter on Eden Prime, had seen the aftermaths of pirate and slaver raids, had fought brutal street fights on Omega. But this? These people were peaceful men and women who had come to a lush and fertile planet seeking a good, simple life. Their executioners weren't machines following programming, they were sentient beings slaughtering other sentient beings. And they were enjoying it.

"I've counted seven so far," Lake had a disgusted frown on his face. "I'd estimate another ten in the buildings."

"Flea, get eyes on," Ash snapped, barely hearing the marksman's acknowledgement as she passed the binoculars to Z. Flea quickly scaled a nearby tree and sat comfortably in the crook of a branch, peering down the scope of his Mattock. Z lowered the binoculars.

"There could be more in the ridges," her voice wasn't the normally clinical tone she would deliver an assessment with. It was a savage growl. Ash looked at her for a few seconds then made her decision.

"Bring them up," Z looked at her for a brief moment, then turned and gave a hand signal to the marines still in the trees. Red, Slow, Silk and Doc came up quickly, Doc pausing for a second to reassure some of the colonists, then he double timed it to where the rest of the unit stared out over the carnage.

"I think there's a route we can use over to the west," Lake pointed his talons at the treeline beyond the village. "They're distracted at the moment, we can slip right past them."

The snap of weapons fire punctuated his sentence, then the cry of a baby rang out. A pistol shot rang out and the crying stopped. Ashley watched as an asari matron was thrown to the ground, a pair of tires from one of the settlement's All Terrain Vehicles forced over her head and around her body. Weighed down, the helpless matron could do nothing but scream as a batarian poured a canister of fuel over her. Another batarian produced a lighter, taunting his victim by flicking it on and off.

Ashley had seen enough. Reaching for her holster, she pulled her Predator out, her left hand produced her weapon's brand new silencer. It was time to field test the damn things. The silencer snapped on easily, adding a few extra ounces of weight to the pistol's muzzle, but nothing she couldn't compensate for.

Following her lead, the rest of the team produced their own pistols and hand cannons, a variety of Predator M-3's, Phalanx M-5's and Carnifex M-6's. Z stood still for a moment. "Chief? What about the rules of engagement?"

"We're already engaged, now arm up," Ashley watched her subordinate, Z gave her trademark shrug and clipped a silencer onto her Carnifex. Final clicks and snaps indicated that Eagle Unit was cocked and locked.

Ash held out her hand, Lake deposited his binoculars into them. Ashley zoomed in on the matron. Fuel was dripping off her face as she begged her captors for mercy. "Flea, you got eyes on the lighter?"

"Affirmative."

"Lighter dies first," Ash surveyed the scene, a number of possible tactics popping up to work best with their weapons and terrain. "We work it like the missile base on Marajo. Red Team goes on the right flank, through the edge of the clearing. Wait for my go, silent and quick. Gold Team, on me."

Ash strode off toward her objective, followed by Slow and Doc, she'd come in from the left, cut them off on the main road and clear them out, building to building. There were no two story buildings, so she didn't have to worry about death from above. Her team had superior training, superior weapons, superior tactics and the element of surprise. The batarians had numbers, but that wasn't much of an obstacle against Eagle Unit.

Z secured her silencer and paused. She pulled on her camouflaged duty cap. Her dark purple skin might give her away. Red did the same, covering his fiery red hair. He had his Phalanx out, but kept his Revenant slung across his chest in case he needed it. Lake had his Predator at the ready. "Z, this might not be the Chief's smartest move," the turian spoke quietly.

"She knows what she's doing," Silk retorted. The sniper had been with Ashley and Z when they had requested permission to liberate a slaver camp. Permission had been denied due to anti-aircraft batteries protecting the camp, making insertion impossible. They had been forced to watch as the batarians executed their prisoners, before surrendering to the Alliance fleet that had arrived too late to be of any use.

"Silk, close up that back door," Z pointed the sniper toward a rocky outcropping further down the slope, providing good camouflage and excellent visibility. Silk carefully climbed down and set up. "Flea, keep your eyes on target."

"Roger that, holding," Flea blinked several times to clear his vision. His scope was locked on the batarian holding the lighter.

"Let go to work," Z strode down the slope. Once her CO commenced the attack, they'd have work fast to keep the element of surprise, the silencers should help with that.

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Silk lowered her rangefinder. =On sight. Fire at will=

Flea didn't reply, breathing deeply he prepared to fire. The batarian with the lighter had decided to stop playing games with his victim. Lifting his arm above the asari, he put his thumb to the activation switch…and grunted with pain as his hand disappeared. He didn't have much time to be surprised as a second round went through his head a millisecond later. His partner opened his mouth to sound the alarm, but never got a chance as a spray of blood sprouted from his chest.

The refugees began to move up, curiosity getting the better of them. Flea continued to scan the settlement, he saw a batarian standing in the hatch of a light hover tank. A bullet took him through the throat. Lina and the others stopped walking as they came onto the ridge where the marines had been standing a few seconds before. Anoka gasped as she heard a muffled click above her. Looking up, she saw Flea, the sniper made a shushing sound as he returned to his bloody work.

Silk fired her first shot as she shot a batarian, arms laden with loot, through the back, the shredder round ripping apart the inside of his torso.

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Ash, Slow and Doc crawled up to the edge of the main road. The sight that greeted them was not pretty. Slow looked at Ash, shaking his head in dismay. "I believe a suitable human expression is 'Damn'," he muttered.

Ashley nodded her head in agreement, sniffing the air. Doc had paled, the medic was struggling to keep his stomach under control. "They've been going at it all day."

On the main road, a pile of bodies was being added to by a pair of batarians. Blue limbs were twisted at unnatural angles, faces frozen in final expressions of pain.

=Chief, on site= Z crouched in a ditch, looking onto the main group of buildings.

=Roger that= Ash began to crawl forward. Doc and Slow followed. Like a monster from a child's nightmare, she rose from the scrub and fired two shots in quick succession. Both of the batarians fell forward onto their own bodypile. Doc and Slow quickly advanced, taking cover behind the wall of a burned out building. Ash peered through a gap in the wall and spotted two turians and a batarian lining a human up against a wall. Silk and Flea fired in tandem, killing all three in seconds.

"Hide," was the only thing Ash said to the human as she ran past him. Screams were coming from the house in front of her. She and Doc stacked up next to the door. Doc peered around the corner, and saw a salarian being stabbed through the chest while his screaming asari mate was restrained by a laughing batarian. He turned back to Ashley. –Eyes on two- was communicated with rapid handsignals. She tapped him on the shoulder twice and nodded. They swung round the corner, Ashley shot the first in the shoulder and the second right between the eyes. Doc rushed forward, his pistol tucked into his webbing, his knife in his hand. Pulling the wounded batarian away from the asari, he slit the rebel's throat. Ash nodded in approval as he turned back to her, Blackburn was in form today. Tossing the body aside, they moved out.

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Lake, Z and Red had found only bodies in the first three houses. Through the holes in the walls of the fourth, they could see two batarians holding down an asari maiden. From the gleeful grins on the faces of the rebels, their intentions were obvious. The first began to pull down his trousers as his companion laughed. They were close enough for their translators to pick up what he said. "Take your time, I'll be back later for my turn."

As he walked through the door, Lake grabbed his shoulder, shot him in the chest and tossed him aside. Red was first in the house, the Russian saw the batarian attempting to move himself into position and saw a curious red glow around his vision as he holstered his pistol and drew his garrote in the same movement. Whipping the string of razor wire around the rapist's neck he yanked him backwards, pulled the garrote tight, and then snapped his neck for good measure. Letting the body fall to the floor he saw the maiden scrambling away from him, terror in her eyes. Blushing furiously, he turned his back, found a blanket and passed it to her. "It's ok, it's alright. I'm here to help you."

She nodded, the terror receding, but still breathing heavily. Z leaned outside the door and shot a turian walking up to the hut. "Red, we don't have time for this."

"One second Gunny," Red turned back to young asari. He tried to remember the few words of Thessian that he knew. "Adina ebe. Hide."

She nodded quickly as they exited the building. As Red moved out, he heard her voice. "Thank you."

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Back on the ridge, the refugees heard the continued reports of gunfire coming from the unsilenced weapons of the rebels. They knew that every shot fired was another life extinguished. Anoka had broken down into sobbing, while old man Keriat tried to comfort her. The young asari travelling with the turian had silent tears streaming down her face.

Lina saw the green and black shapes of the marines flitting through the village. She felt helpless. When it came to treating the sick and the injured, she was without peer. But now? When life was held in such cheap contempt, she was powerless to protect it. The fate of the civilians under Lina's care depended solely on the courage of the woman Lina had called a coward. She saw the turian leave the group and walk towards the village. "Makazi? Where are you going?"

"To help," the turian didn't turn around. Lina had not prayed to the Goddess for years, preferring to find comfort in practical occupations. But now, as she stood on that hilltop she offered up a silent plea for help, begging to whatever deities there were to aid the marines in their fight.

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Red, Lake and Z moved fast, operating with the speed and effectiveness produced from training and experience. Z hurdled a burning fence and continued running. There were only two more areas left to secure. Her team was moving toward a small wooden cottage at the far end of the settlement, Williams was handling the livestock pens. The rain began to fall again. Water pooled with blood.

Thirteen Asari had their backs against the far wall of the pens, to their left a hover tank had its turret pointing in their direction. In front of them were four batarians with assault rifles. They had just finished beating a teenage human boy. Throwing him back into the mud, they backed away from the asari, raising their weapons. Doc scrambled up the side of the tank, grabbed the gunner by the back of the neck and threw himself backwards, dragging the batarian with him. Ashley finished him off with a thrust of her talon.

"You are all enemies of this planet," one the batarians appeared to be some kind of officer. "By harboring humans, you have forfeited your lives."

Slow's tungsten rounds ripped through the four of them, two short bursts robbing them of their lives. Ashley doubted they even knew what had hit them. Slow ran round the back of the pens, Doc ran to the Asari. Ash moved round in front of the prefab that looked like a kind of communal dining hall. She yelled over her shoulder. "Doc, get 'em out of here!"

She shot the first batarian to run from the prefab twice in the chest, the one right behind him in the throat, she swung to her right to catch a third one who ran round the corner. The bullet tore most of his head off. Ash heard a wild battle cry from behind and caught a glimpse of a turian charging at her with a drawn machete pointing straight at her back. Twisting violently, she felt the edge of the machete graze her right bicep. A rifle shot rang out and the turian crashed to the ground.

The tall turian bodyguard, Makazi, lowered the rifle. Ash felt blood running down her arm, giving her savior a brief nod, she took a quick look at the wound. Satisfied that it wasn't serious, Ashley turned her attention back to the pens. Bodies scattered the courtyard area, most of them human. Doc was moving from person to person, finding a teenager with a fading pulse he rolled the boy over and tried to keep his heart going manually. "Come on little man," he administered the compressions. "Come on, you can make it."

Ashley brushed her hand against Doc's shoulder. "There's nothing you can do Doc, he's gone."

The medic slumped back. Leaning forward again, he closed the boy's eyes. Looking back he saw a thin trickle of blood running from Ashley's sleeve. "Boss, you want me to look at that?"

"I'm alright," Ash quietly replied.

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The final building was missing its roof and there were gaping holes in the walls, whoever had been inside must have put up a fight. The bodies of dead batarians lay all around the house. Red heard a strangled cry, followed the familiar sound of a knife piercing flesh. They assumed their standard formation. Red and Z stacked up on the front door, Lake positioned himself at the rear of the house.

Red exhaled, then turned the corner, there were three more rebels inside, two turians, one batarian. One turian had his back to Red, the other was standing by the back door and the batarian was crouched over a beaten and bloodied asari, a knife in his right hand. Three bullets from Red's pistol downed the one with his back to him. Seeing the two heavily armed marines entering, the one at the back door tried to run for it, but ran right into Lake, who put a bullet straight through the young turians chest plates.

Z shot the batarian in the shoulder, the knife flying out of his hand. The batarian tried to reach for his pistol with his left hand, but the muzzles of two pistols pointing in his face quickly convinced him that was a bad idea. "Lake, you good?"

The scout didn't answer Z's question, he simply stared at the dying turian he was still holding. "It's only a child," he spoke with disbelief as he looked into the dying boy's eyes. He could not have been more than fourteen years old. "It's only a damn child!"

Z looked at the asari, still alive despite horrific knife wounds to her chest and stomach. "It's Matriarch Cabinda," she bowed her head briefly in sorrow. "Ask him why?"

"Tuguna chanda?" Red snapped as he pressed his pistol against the batarian's skull. "Tuguna chanda?"

"Orders," the batarian replied simply. Z's sorrow for the death of the elder changed to anger. How could they kill a peaceful and wise matriarch because of orders? She handed her Carnifex to Red, then grabbed the batarian by the throat and rammed him up against the wall. The batarian began to plead, but Z wasn't in the mood for mercy.

"Shut up! Shut the f*** up!" She drew her knife. Twisting the rebel's head around, she made him stare at the mortally wounded matriarch. "Look at your work motherf***er!

The batarian looked at her, fear and desperation mixing in his eyes. Z was viciously pleased to give him a taste of what his victims had experienced. She stabbed forward, the batarian screaming in pain as the talon pierced his lung. Z dragged the blade upwards, watching the life fade from his eyes. Lake observed Z's emotional outburst with a curious expression. Z had never lost her temper before.

Red heard a small cry coming from a corner of the room. Keeping his pistol raised, he whipped away a blanket. Underneath, a small human girl stared at him curiously. "What is it?" Z wiped her blade clean.

"A baby," Red replied, his voice quiet, he looked back at her. Z could have sworn that she saw a hint of moisture in his eyes. "She died protecting it."

Lake keyed his mike. =Doc, get over here. We got an asari with a couple of holes in her.=

=Roger that= Doc holstered his pistol. =On my way=

Silk and Flea led the refugees into the village. Shock and sorrow were prevalent on the faces of Silk and Lina. Flea, as usual, didn't change his expression. Z strode out of the matriarch's house, saw Doc and Ash coming toward her and turned to the right. Walking behind the mostly demolished building, she slumped against the wall, fighting to keep her tears under control.

Red held the hand of the Matriarch. "It's alright, she's safe, you saved her," he tried to re-assure her as blue blood covered his hands. Cabinda nodded, a look of satisfaction briefly passing over her face before the pain returned. Doc brushed his hand over Red's shoulder. Removing his cap, Red stood up and looked at Doc. His voice cracked. "Why?"

Ash followed Z. She sat down next to her, disengaged her silencer and holstered her pistol. "We did all we could. You can't blame yourself."

"I don't hate myself for this," Z stared blankly at her knife blade. "I hate myself for being willing to do nothing."

Williams knew that this wasn't something that could be resolved in one conversation. "Come on, let's finish up."

Entering the building, Ashley saw Doc kneeling by Cabinda's side. He was muttering a silent prayer. "…may her soul and the souls of all the dead find peace in your embrace, and may eternal light shine among them."

Lina stood beside Doc, the medic looked up at her. "She has a low pulse. The medi-gel can't fix all the internal damage, and she's lost too much blood," Blackburn injected a painkiller into his patient's neck. The matriarch gave a final shudder, and then closed her eyes, a look of peace finally descending onto her features. Doc clenched his fists. "How could they do this?"

"This is what they do," Anoka entered the building. She didn't have the control of the soldiers, tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "They will burn entire settlements to the ground, massacre hundreds, so that the next time they attack a village, the village will surrender in the hope of mercy. This is what they do."

Ashley turned on her heel, unable to watch anymore. Red quietly handed Z her pistol, she took it back without a word. The heavy rain had begun to put out the fires, refugees were looting the bodies of the dead batarians, taking their weapons and ammunition. Ashley saw Keriat removing his old and worn boots, replacing them with the boots of the first batarian she had shot.

Silk and Flea carried the bodies of the wounded to Doc and Lina. The fighting had finished for the moment, now they needed to save those that were still alive. There were twenty still alive in the village, twenty out of two hundred. She staggered away from the main buildings, away from prying eyes. Collapsing onto the ground, memories of the past two years began to surface in her mind, memories that she had worked hard to forget. There had never been a mission that she had failed, Ashley would also complete her primary objectives. But there had been civilian casualties, a restaurant hostage situation resulting in the death of a child, a pen full of salarian slaves gassed before Slow could hack the doors.

The burdens and failures of two years pressed down on her, and for the first time since Shephard died, Ashley Williams cried. She cried for Nirali Bhatia and the rest of the 212, she cried for Alenko, she cried for her father and grandfather, she cried for Shephard. And when her tears were spent, she picked herself back up, dusted herself off and returned to her men. The only one to notice her puffy eyes and red cheeks was Lina. She didn't say anything, she couldn't.

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This one was possibly the hardest one to write. I took inspiration for the assault plan from an Australian Special Air Service training video. Two snipers at different elevations covering the front and rear angles, two teams coming in fast and quiet from the left and right. This'll probably take about two more chapters. Keep reviewing so I can make them even better.


	8. Of Right and Wrong

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Eight: Of Right and Wrong

Nothing of the characters written by Bioware belong to me.

NEWAFRICA

2200 HOURS LOCAL TIME

12 KILOMETRES FROM SAFE ZONE

The storm's fury had finally abated, the skies clearing for the first time in days. New Africa's dual moons shone brightly in the night sky. The marines assumed a standard perimeter, Flea and Silk finding themselves comfortable elevation points, Lake setting up motion sensors and Slow reviewing feeds from orbital imagery. He showed his findings to Williams.

"They picked up our trail again at around the same time we were hitting the village," he explained. "They lost it again once they reached the village, I'm guessing they were a little distracted by the bodies of the men we killed. Right now they're hanging around at the settlement. Best analysis from available data? They will make camp tonight and come after us again in the morning. I think we may safely rest in this position for up to eight hours without losing our advantage."

Ashley undid her webbing, shield harness and chest plates. "Alright, take first watch with Silk, Z and Lake. Tell the others to get some rest, wake us at oh two hundred to swap over."

Slow murmured his acknowledgement as Ash pulled out a canteen. Unsealing the lid, she gulped down the cool water inside. As she lowered the bottle she heard soft footsteps as Lina sat down beside her, much like she had at the stream twenty four hours ago. A lot had happened since then though. Thankfully, Lina didn't seek to bring up the events of the day, she simply took out her medkit and reached for Ashley's shirt. On reflex, William's shot out her hand and grabbed the Doctor's arm. "Something you want?" she asked evenly.

"You didn't even put medi-gel on you arm wound," there was reproach in the asari's voice. "It will get infected if you don't let me take care of it."

Ash nodded slowly, and then removed her green and black fatigue shirt. She was wearing a black undershirt with the Alliance Marines symbol, a globe over a starfield with an eagle flying overhead, stenciled on the front. She grimaced as she saw the dried blood coating her forearm. With gentle fingers, Lina wiped away the mud and blood from the cut, cleaned the wound quickly and smeared it with medi-gel, wrapping the whole thing up with a bandage.

"How did you end up in this place anyway?" Ashley winced as the doctor tightened the dressing. "Shouldn't you be getting a tan on Bekenstein, or dancing away the nights in a nightclub on the Citadel?"

"I started my first trip from Thessia about seventeen years ago," Lina took Ashley's canteen and drank from it. "I should have been a few years too young, but my mother wanted me to experience life to the full, she encouraged me to see all I could of the galaxy. My first stop was Ilium with a dozen of my friends, a bottomless supply of credits and a thirst for adventure. I stayed there for two months, then I left for Omega, I wanted to take a walk on the wild side."

Ashley bit back the harsh comment she was about to make about the 'wild side' when Lina continued talking. "I came across a batarian selling a pair of salarians in one of the lower alleys. I blacked out, but when I came to, what was left of that batarian was smeared across the walls. His friends were a little upset by this, but for since Aria didn't want a matriarch's daughter being murdered on her station, she packed me up in one of her fastest ships and sent me packing out of the Terminus systems. I felt….useless. I wondered why I was doing it, flying all over the galaxy in some hedonistic pilgrimage."

Returning Ashley's canteen to her webbing, Lina closed up her med kit. "So I went back to Thessia and got my degree in basic medicine. Then I went to the Citadel and worked in a clinic while earning my diploma in cross species surgical operations. To complete my studies, I went to the University of Paris on Earth and learned everything I could about the anatomy of every known race in the galaxy. It was there that I met Professor Danvers. He took a liking to me, and when he volunteered to come to New Africa with the Citadel Relief Service, he offered me a spot on his team."

Lifting her hand, she indicated the young woman Anoka, who was talking with Z. "For a while we worked at a hospital on the main western continent. Anoka and her boyfriend Andrew were volunteer nurses. Two years we were there, possibly the two happiest years of my life. We did good work, helped many people. Just after Anoka turned eighteen, she and Andrew got married. A few months later and she was pregnant."

Sealing her bag, Lina shouldered it. "Then came the slaver raid. Professor Danvers and Andrew got us to the hidden underground shelter, and then went to fight next to the garrison. When we came out a day later, everyone who hadn't been safely inside the shelter was either dead or gone. I found the Professor lying dead next to the body of the soldier he had been trying to save. We never found Andrew, he could be dead, or digging ore at the bottom of a mine for all I know. Anoka and I made our way to the mission where she gave birth. She may seem afraid of everything, but in some ways she's the strongest person I know of."

Ashley nodded in a form of agreement. Men and women like her and Lina were trained professionals, accustomed to danger and death. People like Anoka were not, but carried on to the best of their abilities. "I'm sorry," she said simply.

Lina gave her a small smile. "You did a good thing today."

Ashley turned her face away and exhaled slowly. "I don't know anymore, if it was a good thing or not. It seems like so long since I've done a good thing, the right thing."

"You should have some rest," Lina turned William's words from the night before back on her. Standing up to leave, she felt Ash's fingers brush hers.

"Thank you for taking care of my arm."

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Anoka offered Z a handful of grey bark. "This is from azungi tree, it will help you stay awake."

Z was surprised by the gesture. Anoka had been afraid of the marines ever since they had arrived at the mission. Now she was offering him help. "Thanks," Z chewed on the bitter substance. The silence became tense as she swallowed, trying to make a conversation. "How long have you been at the mission?"

"Ever since my baby was born," Anoka looked Z in the eye. "I wanted to leave the violence and the fighting behind, I didn't think it would find me."

"I'm sorry that the war came to you," Z wished she could think of something else to say.

"You don't have to be," Anoka took a hesitant step forward. "Will you get me to my daughter?"

"Yes ma'am."

Anoka turned and walked back to her pack. Pulling out a bulky assault rifle she brought it over to Z. "Then I need you to teach me how to use this."

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-She threw herself flat, blazing away at the geth drones chasing her. She staggered out of the underground cavern, panting under the weight of her heavy armour. Kirrahe calls for her to hold the line as Shephard and Saren clash. She hears the sound of running footsteps and snapping branches, drums beating a furious tattoo come closer and closer-

A click sounded to her right and she sat up, snapping the safety on her pistol off and pointing it in the direction of the disturbance. Slow popped his head up from the other side of the log Ashley was lying next to and held up his hands. "Easy boss."

Ash lowered her weapon, shaking her head. She was getting sloppy in this jungle, jumping at shadows. "Are we there yet?"

"While I am most pleased to see that you still got it, we've got trouble," the Salarian gestured toward his laptop. Holstering her Predator, Ashley picked herself up off the ground, groaning as the aches and pains of the past few days caught up with her. Slow sat next to her, indicating the screen.

"Why wasn't I woken for my watch?" Ash noticed the time was 0600 Hours, the first rays of sun lighting up the glen they had taken refuge in.

"Gunnery Chief Kaethon ordered that you be allowed a full eight hours rest," Slow shrugged. "All of us would rather you be well rested and in full control of your faculties."

"Fair enough, what do you got?"

"This is the outfit that's been following us," he pointed at the now familiar thermal group. He stopped as Ashley yawned, brushing sleep from her eyes, she motioned for him to continue. "This them at twenty two hundred hours last night, that was when the last recon drone flew over. "We figured that they'd make camp and come after us at first light? Bad call. Hackett sent one drone over three hours ago, and another two hours later. The imagery just reached me."

Ashley watched as the group shifted from a comfortable ten kilometers away, to seven, to four. "They've been closing in on us all night. How long do we have?"

"One hour, two at maximum," there was no doubt in Slow's voice. "We shouldn't have stopped."

Ash began to stand up, they needed to move fast. A thought struck her as she pulled on her webbing and shield harness and she froze. "How the hell are they tracking us at night? And how are they moving that fast in the dark?"

Slow nodded, he had already thought of the answer. "Somebody is transmitting a signal. I scanned all frequencies but found nothing. It must be set to burst our location for infrequent periods, and then turn itself off."

Ashley finished securing her equipment and then indicated to Slow that he follow her. Moving toward the refugees, she gave a hand signal to Z. The asari jogged to join her, matching her rapid pace. "Z, we got a rat in the nest. Get them up, take their weapons away, you search everyone right now.

Z nodded, Slow began relaying quick instructions through his throat mike. Z got the refugees to their feet. "Come on, let's see those weapons."

Cautiously the colonists handed over their rifles. Ash took Lina to the side. "Doctor, I need you to point out everyone who came into the mission within the last week."

Lina didn't protest this time, she looked at the original group, the ones they had brought from the mission. "Gideon," she pointed to a dark skinned human male. "He just came back from visiting his family."

"Step forward please sir," Flea began to pat down Gideon. Lina indicated the asari maiden and her turian bodyguard. "They arrived five days ago."

Ash looked at Makazi the turian. There was something not quite right about the turian, but why would he save her life if he was betraying them.

"Chief!" Flea raised his voice as Gideon pushed him to the ground and ran for it. Ash saw the human sprint toward the trees, Silk already had her rifle out and moved her muzzle slightly in front of her target. The refugees threw themselves to the ground at the urging of the marines.

"Silk," Ashley gave her permission and was answered by the crack of Silk's Viper. The human dropped to the ground.

"NO!" Lina tried to push past Ashley. The N7 shoved her back.

"What do you think you're doing," the harsh tone returned.

"He's my friend!" Lina took a step backward as Ashley fixed her with an angry glare.

"You know what? He could also be armed, get back with the others. Go on!" Williams didn't bother to see if Lina complied she strode over to where Doc and Red were searching Gideon. Silk hadn't used a shredder round, but the bullet had gone in through his spine and out through his lungs. The refugee coughed up blood as Red pulled a small grey box from his pocket.

"What has he got?" Ashley caught the device as Red tossed it to her.

"It's a low grade transmitter, motherfucker was bugged the whole time," Red took the device back as Ashley grabbed Gideon by the shoulder and forced him to look her in the eye.

"Who told you to do this?" she snarled.

"They have my family," Gideon moaned through a mouthful of blood.

"Who has your family?"

"I was promised," he continued to cough. "I was promised no harm would come to them."

Ashley was sick of everyone in the damn jungle having their own reasons for screwing her over. She put her knee on top of Gideon's exit wound and began putting pressure on it. "Who told you to do it? Who has your family? Who gave you the damn transmitter?"

Lina watched as Red walked back over to the main group. She began to protest Ashley's interrogation, wanted to demand that they stop, but she saw the device in Red's hand and stayed silent. She was shocked into silence, her friend had betrayed them.

"Commander Sahin of the Blue Suns," Ashley knew Gideon didn't have long left. The damage to his lungs was too severe. She took her knee off his chest as he continued talking. "I am one of many who give him information."

"Information about who?"

"We have to follow…" a fresh bout of coughing cut off the end of his sentence. Ashley grabbed his jaw.

"Who do you have to follow?"

Gideon stared at her, his life fading fast. His voice was nearly inaudible. "Enthra."

Ashley didn't know the name, but was willing to lay good money that it was one of the refugees from the original camp. Standing up she began to walk away.

"What do you want to do with him?" Doc's voice interrupted her line of thinking. She glanced back at the heaving chest of the colonist. Would she have done the same thing in his place, betray friends to save family. She didn't have a definite answer, and that scared her.

"Give him a painkiller, then let him bleed out," Ashley saw Lina break away from the refugees and run to Gideon's side as Doc stuck the needle into the man's neck, injected the blue liquid, then left him.

"What will happen to my family?" Gideon grasped Lina's hand in a death grip. The asari doctor stared sadly into his eyes.

"I don't know my friend. Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," Lina knew that he had betrayed her, but she couldn't find it in her to hate him.

"Z, Lake, get everybody up now!" Ash waited until all thirty four refugees were on their feet. She held up the transmitter and walked along the line. "Who knows what this is? Hmm?"

Some of the faces looking at her were shocked, others were afraid, one in particular stood out. Makazi stared at her, his mandibles raised in a turian expression of defiance. Ashley came to a stop in front of him. "This is a bug, taken off Gideon's dead body, Doctor Harrik's good friend. Are there any more of these here?"

Silence answered her question. Ashley didn't like mind games, but somebody was playing a big one with her. "Why would anyone want to transmit our position? Transmit our position to over three hundred batarian soldiers, who ran all night to get within an hour and a half of where we are now."

Tossing the transmitter back to Red, Ashley drew her pistol. A few of the refugees began murmuring in surprise. "Somebody is going to start talking. Somebody's going to start talking right now. 'Cause if they don't tell me what I want to know by the time I count to five, I'm going to kill someone else."

It was an empty threat for all but one of the refugees, Ash would rather shoot herself than commit cold blooded murder of an innocent. Makazi however? He was a fighter, a soldier, it could be seen in his eyes. Killing him would hardly be the worst thing Ashley had ever done.

"One," nobody moved.

"Two," Ashley racked a thermal clip into the chamber.

"Three," she raised the pistol's barrel till it was pointing right between the turian's eyes.

"Don't fuck with me," Makazi continued staring at her, face still set. Ash could tell that he wasn't going to tell her anything. But maybe someone else would. "Four."

The asari maiden stepped in front of Ashley's barrel. "Please, there's no need for this."

Her voice was young, afraid, but it had a note of determination in it that surprised the Operations Chief. She kept her pistol raised. "Now you have something to say to me, don't you?"

"My name is Enthra Tekula, I'm the eldest daughter of Matriarch Allatha Tekula," the maiden stated simply. Ashley felt her heart sink to her boots, they had a second High Value Target in the group and it had taken her this long to find out. "Please don't hurt them. I am sorry that I have misled you, but there are enemies looking for me everywhere, and that is why you are being pursued."

Ashley holstered her pistol, her brain processing the new information. Her voice was harsh as she spoke again. "Our reports said that the Matriarch's entire family was executed."

"Your reports," Enthra's voice cracked slightly. "Were incorrect. They were not executed. They murdered my mother, along with my father and my two…younger sisters. Out of greed, my mother's fight for peace on this planet, for her people. My people."

Williams felt a pang of sorrow, for her whole life, her parents and her sisters had always been there for her, to support her and love her. Enthra had lost that.

"When it first seemed like there might be trouble," Enthra stepped back to stand beside her turian bodyguard. "My mother sent me away with this man, Colonel Makazi."

"Operations Chief," the turian stepped forward. "Her mother was not just the head of the asari population. She was a prominent member of the Council of Matriarchs. She was a custodian for some of the most sensitive information in asari space. Plans for the defence of Thessia, the Citadel and Ilium as well as secrets passed down only through the blood line. The Matriarch melded with her daughter, making her the new custodian. The Blue Suns want that information, they will burn the entire planet to find her."

Turning back to Lina, Williams stared at her. This time it was Lina who could not look her in the eyes. "You knew about this," the accusatory tone in the voice was evident. "You knew all the time and you didn't tell me."

Lina turned back to her. "I didn't trust you at the time," for the first time she was cowed, ashamed. Ashley nodded.

"I wonder what it takes to earn your trust," she strode past her. "Slow, Lake, give 'em back their weapons. Pack everything up, we're leaving. Red, get your box of goodies out."

"Broken, burning, or bedlam?" a smile crawled across Red's face as he reached for his pack.

"All three sound good," the whole mission, Ashley had been reacting to the decisions of her enemies, albeit unknowingly. She had been playing defensive the whole time, now it was time for offense.

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0700 HOURS MILITARY TIME

SAME LOCATION

The column of rebel troops had arrived to find vultures circling overhead. Instead of unprepared refugees, they found the body of a dead human, the beacon still flashing strongly on their maps. The turian Blue Sun noticed his batarian superior's hand move toward the knife on his belt. Quickly whipping out his electronic map, he tried to assuage his commander's anger. "They must continue their route next to the Katanja River, or they will lose half a day. So they must come across here in order to get to the safe zone. If we get a transport in here immediately, we might be able to move fast enough to…"

The turian noticed one of the rebels picking up something tied around Gideon's neck. "NO!" he roared. The rebel looked around nervously and placed the object back down. As he moved away, the turian saw that it was the transmitter Sahin had given the human, but what was that grey substance it was wrapped in?

The C7 foam explosive that coated the transmitter exploded in a ball of fire, killing the rebels clustered around the body. Red poked his head out of the long grass where he had been hiding for an hour, smiled as he saw the batarians were bunched up exactly where he wanted them, and then clicked his detonator.

Operations Chief Williams hadn't wanted Red to bring excessive amounts of explosives, which was why he had asked Slow and Doc to carry his rations for him, and then loaded himself up with everything that he had imagined they might need. Instead of two water bottles, he carried four cans of C7 foam. Instead of MREs he had eight Claymores. Instead of a reserve parachute, he had carried in six C12 high explosive charges. He had kept one Claymore in reserve just in case and deployed the rest around the area that the rebels were now clustered in. It was a dream come true for any explosives expert, the equivalent of a sniper's JFK shot.

Screams rang out as the Claymore's detonated, the ball bearings embedded in pads of C12 ripping into the tightly grouped batarians. Turning around, the batarians began to run, straight into the C12 anti infantry packs that tore them to pieces. The survivors looked back and forth, trying to find an escape, the C7 sprayed at the bases of eighteen gigantic azungi trees flared up, the enormous trunks crushing the scrambling rebels under their bulk as they toppled to the ground.

Three hundred turians and batarians had entered the gully, maybe twenty were still alive, most of them wounded, half of that number fatally so. Satisfied that his work was done, Red took off, unburdened by webbing or weapons. Staying low to the ground, he followed the trail that the refugees had left him. The slaughter at Calm Wind Mission had been avenged.

The first thing Commander Sahin did when the ringing in his ears stopped was to cut the throat of his turian tracker. The batarian did not suffer failure lightly, and executing his own men proved a useful method of both keeping the chain of command obedient and full of opportunities. He cursed himself for his own stupidity, he had enjoyed playing this game with the human commander, allowing the marine to think that he had fooled him. But the human had outguessed him, rooting out his spy and leaving behind a cunning trap that he had walked straight into.

Sahin thought briefly about how desperate the spy had been to keep his family alive, willing to return to the mission and betray his friends. Sahin prided himself on keeping his word, he wouldn't kill the human's wife and three daughters, they would bring him more on the slave market anyway. He opened a link to nearest Blue Suns outpost. "There has been a complication. Assemble everyone we have."

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0945 HOURS MISSION TIME

KATANJA RIVER, 5 KILMETRES FROM SAFE ZONE

"Good hustle Red," Ashley saw the Russian move along the river bank. "Brief Z on damage, I'll be with you in a sec."

"This river can take us right to the safe zone," Lake indicated the thin blue line leading the green zone marked on the map. "But we gotta assume they'll expect that, maybe try and get troops in front of us."

"What do you think?" Ashley just wanted it all to be over, but even if the bad guys on their six had been neutralized, she couldn't let her guard down yet.

"I think we're damned either way," the turian stretched his legs, Ash winced as she heard a cracking sound, she had never gotten used to it. "But if we follow the river for three more clicks, then cut across the jungle for the final two, we might be able to avoid the worst. There are enough Asari Commandoes in that safe zone to rip apart a division of these barefaces, but they can't come to us, we have to go to them."

"Alright, pass it along to the others, good job," Williams turned to face Z, who was climbing down the bank to her. "What do you got Z?"

"Red reports that the bogies on our six are paste, and Nest is on the horn," Z passed Ash the headset.

=Go ahead Nest, this is Eagle One over,= Ashley braced herself for another verbal sparring match with Hackett.

SSV EVERST

FLIGHT DECK

Hackett held the headset to his right ear and his left hand to his other, blocking out the sound of fighters and transports taking off and landing. Mikhailovich stood beside him, a smug smile decorating his face as he sipped the cup of coffee that Hackett had been forced to let him hold so he could communicate on the noisy flight deck. "I just got handed a report from Crazy Ivan, stating that both Blue Sun and rebel elements in your sector are conducting a search and destroy for an Alliance military unit, travelling with one Enthra Tekula, daughter of the late matriarch. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this would you?"

"Yes sir, we just discovered that ourselves," Ashley gave a wry smile, Hackett had found out before she did. "She and her bodyguard concealed themselves within Doctor Harrik's refugee party."

"Well that's a major problem Operations Chief," Hackett turned his face away as a dropship carrying a representative from the turian military landed on the flight deck. "Her presence involves your mission in the internal politics of a non-Alliance world, affecting Citadel diplomacy and seriously increases the mission's risk. Add to that, she's considered a criminal by the new regime. It's a major liability Eagle One."

"What does that mean," Ashley was done hiding behind words. If Hackett wanted to say something, he could come right out and say it. Mikhailovich's voice came across the comm line, saying it in plain terms.

"It means her party is excess cargo."

"Does that mean she's not a person sir?" Ashley could imagine Hackett and Mikhailovich stiffening at her accusation. "This young woman is the daughter of a matriarch, she possesses information that may be critical to the Thessian government. Do you know what that means?"

"Cut the crap Chief, who do you think you're talking to," Hackett came back on the line.

Ash exhaled, why couldn't she get these….idiots to realize what she was trying to do. "Sir, you know as well as I do what's going to happen if I leave her out here. There's not gonna be a trial, there's not going to be a jury. They'll tie her down in a chair, pay another Asari to rip the information out of her mind, then take her out the back and put two in her head. Dammit, I'm just asking for a little bit of help here, put yourself in my shoes Admiral!"

"I've been in your shoes Ashley, so has Mikhailovich and every other admiral in my fleet!"

"Send in an air evac immediately and get these people and my team out of here!" Ashley knew her tone was insubordinate, almost mutinous, but she didn't care. She had hiked across thirty five kilometers of blood, sweat and tears with these people and she wasn't about to give up now. The pride and honor instilled in her by her father, the Alliance and Shephard refused to give up.

"Negative on air support at this time, airspace is too hot. Dammit Williams, your judgment has risked the lives of your men, and the mission's success. I strongly advise you to complete the evacuation as planned. Do you read me?" Hackett raised his voice over the sound of the engines, the gruff admiral beginning to lose his temper with the stubborn marine.

Ashley had never been calmer, she was experiencing a moment of total clarity. There was no more confusion, Lina wasn't lying, Makazi wasn't lying, Hackett wasn't lying, and she had stopped lying to herself. "Yes sir, I read you. But I cannot in good conscience do that, without first escorting these people to safety."

"That is not your mission!"

"When have I not completed one of your missions?" Hackett was silent, Ashley could hear Mikhailovich chuckling in the background. At another time she would have gladly have punched the admiral out for laughing at her situation, but now she knew the cynical Russian was just showing his support. "My team and I will complete this mission. I give you my word."

Hackett thought about making it an order, and then decided against it. Whether she realized it or not, Ashley had just come out from under Shephard's shadow. If he made it an order, she would just disobey it and keep on the path she had set for herself. That didn't mean he was any happier than he had been before. "I don't like this, I don't like any of it. You get your ass back here alive, soon as possible, maintain contact with Operations Centre. I'll direct air support your way as soon as I can. I promise you."

=Yes sir= Ash's voice replied. =Goodbye sir, Eagle One out=

Hackett lowered the headset and gazed at the turian commander staring him in the face, explaining why the fleet had been delayed. Hackett turned back to Mikhailovich. "Get our lead elements into place, we're not waiting for the turians. Tell the STG to launch their strike now. Commence Operation UPPERCUT."

"Sir it might take hours to get our forces into place…" Mikhailovich was cut off as Hackett glared at him. He turned and walked briskly toward the elevator, speaking over his shoulder. "But I'll speed it up as much as I can sir."

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Ash gave the handpiece back to Z. "Get everyone up on me," she checked her rifle. The thermal clip was fully charged and ready to fire, the concussion launcher had a round in the tube. "So much for diplomacy."

She looked at her soldiers, her Eagle Unit. Z, Silk, Red, Doc, Slow, Lake, Flea. "Here's the deal, it's been strongly suggested that we turn over Enthra and abandon these refugees out here in the bush."

Lina stood on the top of the bank and looked at the marines, shame suddenly washing over her. She had thought them to be barbarians, primitive beings of violence and anger, slaves of 'duty'. Now she knew that she couldn't have been more wrong.

"Let me tell you right now, I'm not going to do that," Ash shook her head. "I can't do that."

They stared at her, faces thoughtful as she continued speaking. "Broke my own rule, started to give a damn, and I dragged you guys along with me. We're about to walk into some serious shit, before we do, I'd like to…hear what you guys have to say about it. That's all, speak freely."

There was silence for a few seconds, then Lake spoke. "My opinion ma'am? We cut our losses, this isn't our war."

Ash nodded, she understood, she was about to tell him that he could leave and she wouldn't blame him when he spoke again. "But as far as me being in or out is concerned? You know the answer to that."

"Let's get these people to safety," Doc spoke up. "Let's finish what we started."

Silk shook her head. "I can't leave them Ash. And I won't leave you."

Flea gave a shrug. "Good to go whenever you are."

Ashley looked over her shoulder at Red. "What about you?"

Red was silent, he stared at the flowing river. "I can't look at them like packages anymore. I'm gonna get 'em out, or I'm gonna die trying."

Slow flipped a coin in the air, he looked at the side and then back at Ash. "We there yet?" he asked in a bored tone. The remark brought a smile to the faces of the unit, a rare light moment in a dark hour.

"Thanks fellas," Ash's voice was clear again. "Strip those packs down to rolling gear only. Have the refugees drop anything that don't go boom. Let's move."

"Cryfest is over people. Let's hustle," Z snapped off as the team double timed it up the bank. Ash went to follow when Z grabbed her by the arm. The two stared at each other for a second.

"Operations Chief Ashley Williams," Z spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. "These are my people as well. For all the times that we were told to stand down or stand by. You're doing the right thing."

She clasped Ashley's arm, Ashley gripped back. "For our sins," the chief said simply.

"Oo'rah?" Z challenged

"Oo'ray," Ashley replied.

As Z walked away to join the column of colonists, as they discarded their possessions and allowed the marines to check their weapons, Ashley bent down to help Lina to her feet. "Chief…Ashley. I'm sorry," Ashley couldn't believe her ears as the proud asari finally apologised. It wasn't stiff or formal, it was simple. She wasn't looking to curry favour, she just wanted to let Ashley know how she felt. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Enthra, I'm sorry for bringing all this danger upon you. I should have trusted you."

"It's alright," Ashley offered Lina her pistol. She hesitated for a moment, and then took it. "I would have done the same thing if it had been me in your position. I wouldn't have trusted me either. I've been in your shoes before, trust isn't easy to give. I'll get you and your people to safety, that's a promise."

"A promise?" a tear rolled down Lina's cheek. "We're going to be surrounded and outnumbered long before we reach the safe zone. How can you keep that promise."

"I'm a Williams," Ashley and Lina rejoined the column. "We always keep our promises."

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The grand finale is next chapter. I'm kind of sad to reach the end of it all. It struck me as I was writing this chapter that the same way Ash couldn't bring herself to trust Shephard on Horizon, so could Lina not bring herself to trust Ashley. I wrote Lina to have some of Ashley's character traits, notably her stubbornness.

When I first started writing, I intended the story to fixate mainly around Ash, Z, Lina and Hackett. But as I kept writing, I wanted to put more personality into the team members. Hence the compassion that Doc and Flea possess, Silk's steadfast loyalty, Lake's sullenness, and the character arc that I developed for Red(Who doesn't love a Russian explosives expert:)

The coffee side plot that I added between Hackett and Mikhailovich is based around the interaction of my Commanding Officer and my Chief Instructor at cadets whenever we're out on field exercises. My CO always remembers to bring coffee, my CI always forgets.


	9. The Wings of an Eagle

Tears of the Sun

Chapter Nine: The Wings of an Eagle.

I own nothing and I understand if some of you hate me for what I am about to do.

1300 HOURS MISSION TIME  
1 KILOMETRE FROM SAFE ZONE  
N7 SOCCOM: EAGLE UNIT

The final morning mist cleared away as Lake surveyed the open field in front of him. Beyond the field was another clump of trees, followed by a small creek, then seven hundred meters of long grass, a small hill and finally the safe zone. They hadn't run into any Blue Suns or rebels yet. The turian was beginning to hope that maybe it wasn't a suicide mission after all. He sniffed at the air, he smelled the faint whiff of hookah tobacco. He thumbed his throat mike, contacting the main group slowly making their way through the trees twenty meters behind him.

=Chief, wait one. I say again, hold one= he muttered as he holstered his Scimitar and drew his M-8. He began sweeping the field, looking for any indication of hidden troops.

Back in the treeline, Ashley heard the snap of a branch breaking coming from the field. "Everyone down!" she hissed at the refugees behind her. About thirteen of the refugees were armed with weapons taken from dead rebels. Colonel Makazi was the unofficial commander of this unit, while Williams maintained tactical command. Lina was carrying Ashley's pistol, though if the batarian's got close enough that she needed to use it, Ashley would have already failed.

"Where are you hiding?" Lake muttered to himself. He thumbed the safety on his rifle and tightened his finger around the trigger. He just needed a definite target. He heard a rustling sound coming from the knee high grass and snapped his rifle to cover. As he was about to fire, a baby kaffun goat bounded out of the grass, looked at him curiously for a few seconds then happily trotted away. Lake shook his head. "You're getting sloppy." He muttered to himself.

=Clear Chief, it was just a goat, I'm crossing over= the turian stood up, then a crack echoed across the field and he fell back into the grass, blue blood leaking from a small hole in his right shoulder.

=Sniper, eleven o'clock= Red couldn't reach him with his Revenant. =Just inside the treeline.=

"Silk? You have him?" Ashley called out as the dark skinned sniper scanned for a target.

"He's in cover," Silk shook her head. "Don't have a clear shot."

"Z, bang and burst," Ash clicked off her safety. It was time to finish the fight. Z brought up her Vindicator, prepping her concussion launcher. Red tossed a smoke canister as Z's grenade screamed through the air and exploded in a ball of fire on the sniper's position. A scream indicated a direct hit, Red's smoke screen giving Doc and Ash enough cover to run forward to Lake.

"Look who it is, the cavalry," Lake winced as Doc activated his medi-gel dispenser, sealing the wound. "Sorry ma'am, they caught me sleeping. I'm better than that."

"Don't worry about it," Ashley helped him sit up. "How bad Doc?"

"Round went straight through the shoulder, clean hit though," Doc reached for a field dressing. "You'll have to use your left arm for shooting."

"Did we get that bareface?" Lake grunted, Doc didn't have time to be gentle with his first aid.

"We got some of them? You see any others?" Ashley knew that it couldn't' just be one sniper, there had to be more.

"Maybe, I could smell cigarettes before that goat got my attention," the turian attempted to stand back up. "Come on Doc, make it tight. Get me back in the game."

Williams helped Lake to his feet, then threw him back to the ground as she heard a series of dull thumps coming from the treeline. "Get down!" she roared as smoke trails appeared overhead, heavy rockets exploding in the forest behind her. Her first thought was to run back and get the refugees out of the blast zone, but she quickly squashed that thought. They couldn't run from rocket launchers, they needed to fight.

As the first salvo rockets finished, she heard the sharp crack of Silk's Viper, the three shot bursts coming from Z's Vindicator and the repetitive chatter of Red's Revenant as the other squad charged past her. Picking herself up, she lifted her Avenger and fired off a concussion round. Eagle Unit assumed a standard skirmishing line, rapidly advancing over the field toward the batarian firing pits.

Explosions tore through the forest, felling trees and throwing up dirt. Lina threw up a barrier over herself and the baby the marines had rescued from the village. Rockets impacted on the blue shield, and Lina suddenly felt weak, she wouldn't be able to keep the barrier up for long.

Ash snapped off a final burst, then threw herself flat as another rocket detonated behind her. She gave a savage grin as she swapped her spent thermal clip for a fresh one, they were within grenade range now. Reaching into their pouches, the marines lobbed the high explosive devices over the heads. One of the batarian's stood up and managed to get off a final shot with his rocket launcher before Slow's grenade turned him into mangled corpse. The projectile slammed into Lina's barrier, knocking her to the ground.

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Commander Sahin smiled slightly as he surveyed the jungle in front of him. As soon as the heavily armed rebels he had stationed here had reported sighting the pathetic column of refugees, he had mobilized all the forces under his command and was now positioned just a few hundred yards behind the refugees.

He had about fifty rebels left, disposable foot soldiers, and three hundred of his best legionnaires, all of them equipped with high grade weapons and armour. He already executed the tech who had tried explaining why the shields on the hardsuits wouldn't work. His new second in command, an Asari who he had hired to retrieve the information via a mind meld, was impatient to begin the attack.

Sahin was in no hurry. If he waited for the marines to return to their precious refugees, he could catch them while they were distracted, increasing his chances of securing his target relatively unharmed.

As the last of the grenades went off, Ashley stood up and examined the firing pits. No rebels were left to kill. Turning around, her heart sunk as she saw the tree line. The moans of wounded refugees reached her ears. The rebel's rockets had done their job well. Her mind screamed at how unfair it was. She had gotten this far, and now, within spitting distance of her objective, she had been caught flatfooted. 'Screw it,' she decided. 'Even if I die, I'm not going to lose.'

She sprinted back toward the refugees. "Doctor Harrik?" she yelled, frantically searching for the young asari. "Lina? Lina?"

Z helped Anoka to her feet, old man Keriat had thrown himself across the young woman, shielding her with his body. The old colonist had willingly given his life for his friends. Despair shot through Ashley as she saw Lina's familiar shape lying face down.. Flipping the body over, she checked for any wounds but couldn't find any apart from a coat of black explosive residue that now covered her face and clothes. "Come on, wake up. Wake Up!"

Lina stared at her with heavily lidded eyes. She shook her head. "I'm so tired," she muttered. Satisfied that the asari wasn't injured, Ashley lifted her hand back and slapped Lina across her face. The doctor opened her eyes wide, cheeks flushing with shock at the sudden pain.

"Lina, listen to me, we've gotta go now," her tone was urgent. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, she took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Slow, Z, get them up. Let's go!"

"I don't think I'll be able to do that boss," Slow's calm voice choked as Ashley looked around for him. The salarian was clutching his stomach, blood seeping out from behind his fingers. Doc caught him as he fell, gently lowering him to the ground. Lina and Williams got up and ran over to him.

"Slow! Dammit!" Ashley saw Doc give a shake of his head, there was nothing he could do. One of the batarians must have tossed a grenade, Slow began coughing up blood.

"I never saw it coming boss," he panted, Ashley looked into his eyes, she saw fear, panic and desperation. "It wasn't supposed to be like this, it wasn't supposed to happen this way."

"My fault, my fault. Not yours," Ashley injected a painkiller into Slow's neck as Doc applied medi-gel to the stomach wound. Slow was already fading, but they had to try.

"You know what to do, right? You're not going to stop, right?"

"Yeah, I know what to do," Ashley saw the life draining away from Slow's eyes. He went slack in her arms.

"I guess we're there, huh," he closed his eyes.

Ashley fought back tears as her friend began slipping into the void. "Yeah, we're there."

"Good," a small smile decorated his face as he died. Ashley felt an icy hand grip her heart. Another Virmire Survivor was dead, she didn't like her own chances anymore. She lowered his body to the ground. She looked up at Z.

"Get these people ready to move now, do it!" She noticed Flea looking away, unable to stare at the body of his teammate. "Silk, get his weapons and ammo."

Slinging her rifle across her back, Silk unstrapped Slow's Revenant and thermal clip bandolier from his chest. Doc reached around Slow's neck and grabbed his STG identification tags. He looked back at Ashley. "What about his body?"

"We'll come back for it," Ashley reassured him as she stood back up. She saw Enthra bending over one of the bodies. It was Colonel Makazi, the turian had taken heavy wounds to his chest from a near miss by a rocket. Tears fell down Enthra's face as she tried to revive her protector, begging him to get back up.

Ashley grabbed Enthra and pulled her to her feet. "Listen to me. This man is dead, if you don't want his death to be meaningless, it's time for you to grow the fuck up and get your people to the safe zone. Got it?"

Enthra struggled to control herself, Ash understood her grief but didn't have the time to deal with it. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am," Enthra picked up Makazi's rifle. Ash turned to one of the few asari commandoes that had still been alive at the settlement.

"You stay with her, make sure she stays alive."

"Yes ma'am," the commando nodded before her arm exploded in a flash of blue blood.

"Everybody down!" Ash hurled herself flat. Over the trunks of fallen trees, she could see the flash of weapons fire and saw another rocket fly past. She made a rapid assessment, the batarians had come up behind them and were softening them up with heavy weapons fire before they committed themselves to the fight. Fortunately for Eagle Unit, the trees that had been felled in the initial rocket barrage, made for excellent cover.

"Open up those tool boxes boys, they're gonna be coming," Silk and Red set up their Revenant's on top of stumps and trunks, while any refugee who had a weapon, pointed it at the jungle. The weapons taken from the rebels were old pieces of junk for the most part, a series of Banshee Mark Is and other low grade assault rifles, not even retrofitted with thermal clip technology. Still, at the very least they could provide a barrage of bullets.

Making a mental check of their armaments, Ash knew they couldn't hold the position. They had too few weapons and not enough trained fighters. But to fall back, they'd first need to blunt the spearhead of the rebel assault. Once they'd given them a bloody nose, then they could withdraw.

"Red, how many Claymores do you have left?"

"Just the one, Chief," Red pulled the anti-infantry mine from his pack. "I see a good spot for it about twelve meters out."

A bullet hid the trunk right next to Ashley's head, throwing up splinters of wood. "Ok, you go plant it, everyone else give cover fire for Red on my mark."

Doc took over Red's machine gun, gazing down the iron sights at the shadowy figures of rebels appearing in the jungle. Z lifted her Vindicator, Flea racked a fresh thermal clip into his Mattock.

"Red…NOW!" Ashley sighted on her targets and fired. Her M8's armour piercing rounds put the rebels down hard as Doc and Silk swept the Revenants back and forth, cutting them down. Lake pulled the unit's only M-100 grenade launcher off Doc's back. He fired the first of the launcher's ten rounds as Red sprinted forward, dived to the ground and planted the claymore on the opposite side of a fallen tree. As he pulled his hands back, bullets clipped the trunk, sending splinters into his hands and face.

Getting back to his feet, Red scrambled back toward the marine's position. Leaping over the trunk, he pulled off a stylish combat roll and slid back into cover. "Charge planted, they're right on top of it!"

"Get your heads down!" Ashley motioned for him to trigger the Claymore. The first ten batarians were sent flying as it exploded. The marines popped back up, now firing on definite targets, the rebels running into a wall of incredibly accurate bullets. Z pulled the handset from her radio.

=Nest this is Eagle Two. On the west side of Safe Zone Lima Charlie, request Immediate Close Air Support. Location, Grid Three Niner by Four Charlie Zero=

"Launchers now!" Ash fired her last concussion round, as did Flea. Lake checked the ammo for the M-100, he had five shots left. He considered saving them for when things got desperate, but as he saw the massed rebels charging head on at them, he abandoned that line of thinking and continued firing.

=Negative, I say again. We are one grid direct north of Katanja River. Estimate company strength bad guys, need many big booms. Come back, over= Z shook her head to Ashley's unspoken question. What parts of the transmission were actually getting through to the Air Traffic Controller aboard the Everest might be too garbled for the air support to act on.

"Grenades over the top now," Ashley pulled both of her grenades, tossed one to Z and hurled her own. Lake fired the last round from the M-100 and threw the empty weapon aside.

"We got no more big stuff," he called to Williams. "And Red's bag of tricks is empty."

"Alright, pull back across the field. Provide covering fire for the civilians. Z, get them out of here now."

Z grabbed Anoka's arm and yelled to the refugees lying in the grass. "You have to run, do not stop running until you get to safety. GO NOW!"

The colonists got up, keeping low they began to move, using the little energy that they had left to run for their lives. Ashley wasn't even thinking anymore, switching and firing at targets with a precision born from a lifetime of practice and experience. She may as well have been a machine. She pushed Lina away, the doctor running to keep up with her people. Red reclaimed his Revenant from Doc, who began firing his Locust SMG.

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Sahin grinned, the commander of these humans had destroyed the squad of snipers and heavies that he had placed in their way, and had paused long enough to give his forces a bloody nose before falling back. Now it was his turn, he gave a nod to his Asari subordinate. She gave a bloodcurdling battle cry and charged forward, followed closely by the Blue Sun's legionnaires.

Sahin did not feel the need to join his troops in the battle. That was what he paid them to do. Successfully completing this mission would bring him untold personal profit, and who knew what else? With the deaths of Commander Jentha and Commander Tarak and Commander Santiago going into hiding after an assassination attempt, there might be a big promotion in the wind. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes, smiling as he saw a heavily armed human female shouting and gesturing to a group of soldiers. So this was his rival? The one who had lead him on an exhausting chase all over the mountains? She had been a worthy adversary, but now it was time for her to die.

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SSV EVEREST

FLIGHT DECK

Flight Lieutenant Douglas 'Lucky' Brown strapped himself into the cockpit of his Hornet-class fighter. To his left, his wingman, 'Badger', powered up his engines. Lieutenant Wren in the Air Traffic Control center relayed their instructions.

=We lost some of the target co-ordinates during transmission. Once you get within range, you'll need to contact Eagle Unit for directions on where to direct CAS. Salarian STG teams have it targeting control centers for the orbital defence grid, so you should be clear on the way in=

=Roger that Tower, Lucky is leaving the Nest=

Exiting the landing bay, the two Hornets powered up their thrusters. As he sped toward the planet, Lucky whistled as he saw wolfpacks of frigates mobbing the few remaining orbital defence platforms. The troop transports were still on their way to their release points, but they were loaded down with Alliance marines and asari commando units. Almost two full battalion s of N6 Special Forces had been assigned to Operation UPPERCUT. The Alliance wasn't doing this on a small scale.

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NEW AFRICA

800 METERS FROM SAFE ZONE

Doc fired the last shot from his pistol's thermal clip. Holstering the sidearm, he brought up Lake's Scimitar and dropped another two legionnaires who were getting too close for comfort. The marines formed a new line just behind the firing pits of the rebel snipers. Thermal clips were ejected and replaced in a cacophony of clicks and snaps. Ash took a deep breath as she saw even more Blue Suns appearing out of the smoke. They were completely outnumbered, they didn't have the firepower to stop them, and they were starting to run low on thermal clips.

"Pull out, one at a time. Leapfrog," She yelled over the gunfire. Red nodded and scurried past her. Ashley fired two more shots, then pulled back to join Red, forming a new line ten meters behind their first. One by one the marines began to pull back. As Lake started to run, he saw one of the asari lying on the ground a few feet away from him. Looking back and forth between the relative safety of the marine line and the screaming woman on the ground, he made his choice. Running to the asari, he threw away his assault rifle and pulled her to her feet.

"Run, now!" he roared as he pulled out his Phalanx. He heard Silk call his name as the sniper exhausted the last rounds in Slow's Revenant, cutting down a few mercenaries that he hadn't had enough time to take out. Silk pulled out her Viper, standing next to Flea and Z, matching them shot for shot, adrenaline slowing the world down as she depressed her trigger.

"Covering Fire!" Z screamed as the two lines of marines fell back, unable to cover their flanks. Red checked his thermal clip, forty shots left and no spare clips.

Lina turned around, she could barely see the marines through the smoke. "Come on, we have to go," Enthra tried to pull her away. Lina bit her lip, "We can't just leave them."

Lake walked backwards, firing his Phalanx as fast as he could pull the trigger, he could hear the asari running behind him. He felt a flash of pain as several bursts of fire hit his shields. His pistol dropped from his hands as a bullet hit him in the chest. Turning around, he tried to keep running but a second bullet took him through the back of his leg.

"Keep going. Move," Lake watched helplessly as the asari was cut down by more assault rifle fire coming from behind him. He kept crawling forward, sapphire blood leaking from his wounds.

The asari Blue Sun lifted an ML-77 missile launcher to her shoulder. Curling her lips in a sneer she fired. The rocket locked on to a pair of asari standing twenty meters behind the marine line. Lina threw up another barrier, the more powerful missile deflected off it and exploded a few meters away from her. She and Enthra were thrown to the ground by the missile's concussive blast.

Ashley looked behind her to the explosion. "HOLD THE LINE!" she roared as she turned to take care of Lina. The cry was taken up by the remaining five marines. The Blue Suns were being temporarily held back by the sheer volume of fire the N7's were producing. Flea swapped his thermal clips, then sighted on an asari slightly behind the rest of the Blue Suns, had to be an officer, she was already pointing a Vindicator at him. She beat him to the trigger, one three round burst dropping his already weakened shields, a second ripping into his chest. He fell onto his back, gasping for breath.

Z grabbed Flea by his webbing harness and tried to drag him away. One of his pouches caught on a tree stump and refused to come loose. "Come on Flea," Z put her hand to his throat, trying to feel a pulse as the grey eyes of the marksman dilated. "Don't do this."

Looking back up, she saw Red was still blazing away, while Doc and Silk were beginning to walk backwards. "Pull back now! Red, don't be a hero, get your ass out of there!"

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Lucky inhaled deeply as he entered the stratosphere, it'd take him about two minutes to work his way through New Africa's atmosphere. He'd come out around five hundred clicks away from the target zone. He prayed that he wouldn't be too late.

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Ashley tossed her rifle aside as she slid down next to Lina. She could see bits of shrapnel sticking out of Lina's back, she couldn't see any heavy bleeding though. Putting her hand to the doctor's neck, she felt a strong pulse. Raising the barrier must have burned through a lot of the doctor's energy. "Enthra? You still with me?"

The young maiden nodded, crawling over to Ashley and Lina. Ash yelped in pain as a round grazed her leg. "Are you alright?" Enthra extended a hand to Ashley who shook her head and nodded to Lina.

"Help me get her up," with Enthra's help, Williams managed to pick Lina up in a fireman's hold. Staggering toward the river, Ashley gave thanks that Lina didn't weigh much. "Start running and don't stop."

The refugees ran across the river, some falling over in the knee high water, their companions stopped to help them up. Fear gave them new energy. As Ashley ran she managed to activate her comm line. "Z, no more we can do. Get to the river."

"We're coming, we're coming!" Z turned and ran, ejecting her spent clip. She only had two left. Red kept firing as Z, Silk and Doc ran for their lives. Lake finished crawling to the body of the woman he had died trying to save. Looking up, he saw another Asari pointing a rifle at him. In the second before she pulled the trigger, Lake gave thanks to the spirits for allowing him enough time after the destruction of his unit by the geth to make an end that would be worthy of remembrance by his clan. "May good fortune follow you always my friends," he murmured.

Four more Blue Suns dropped as Red exhausted the ammunition for his Revenant. "FUCK YOU!" he screamed as he hurled his weapon in the direction of his foes. Pulling out his Predator, he began to run, pausing only to pull Flea's bandolier from his body.

Williams waded through the river, followed closely by Enthra. Most of the refugees were continuing their desperate race through the field. After the river, there was a slight drop, four hundred meters of mostly flat terrain covered by thick elephant grass exported from earth. The grass came up above the heads of most humanoids. After the field, there was three hundred more meters of grass going up a gradual slope. And thirty meters past the crest of that slope was the Safe Zone. The few refugees that had kept hold of their weapons were pointing them across the river, planning to provide covering fire for the rest of Ashley's unit.

Part of Ashley wanted to turn, stand and fight. But Z was a good combat leader, and Ashley still needed to complete her primary objective. Sending a prayer in Z's direction she continued moving forward.

Doc dropped the shotgun as he staggered down to the river bank. Seeing a group of stepping stones, he hopped, skipped and jumped his away across, pulling out his pistol he waited for targets.

Anoka gripped the antique Banshee assault rifle. She hadn't even fired it yet, Z had taught her how to aim and the best way to hold the rifle so the recoil wouldn't hurt her shoulder too much, but an hour of instruction on the principles of marksmanship didn't even come close to the basic weapons handling course all marines went through.

Z leapt down the bank, tripped on a tree root and fell face first into the water. Getting back on her feet, she heard a clicking sound behind her and turned to see a batarian pointing a shotgun at her. Anoka shut her eyes tight, pointed the rifle in the Blue Sun's general direction, and yanked the trigger. She didn't let go until the rifle's heat sink began whining. When she opened her eyes, the batarian was nowhere to be seen, but Z was clambering up the bank towards her. The marine took her rifle away from her. "Thanks for the rescue, now you go find your daughter. Go Now!"

As Anoka began to run, Z lifted the Banshee to her shoulder. "Fire on my mark!" she yelled to the five refugees that had summoned up the courage to stand their ground. She saw a flash of red hair. "Fire!"

Red and Silk turned as they got to the river bank. Red brought up his pistol, firing multiple shots at the blue and white armored figures charging at him. Silk's rate of fire was slower, but each shot she fired as another dead batarian. The telltale click of a spent thermal clip echoed from Silk's Viper. She reached for her Carnifex as the refugees fire cut down several of the Blue Suns in front of them. "Cross over, I'll cover," Red could have laughed at the absurdity of his statement. Cover her with what? He couldn't have more than four or five shots left in his Phalanx, and Flea's bandolier only had three more clips in it.

Silk ran for it, but spotted two legionnaires and a heavy trying to cross further downstream. Bringing up her Carnifex, she fired three shots. The first two took the heads off their targets, the third missed. She didn't have time to lament her failure as an assault rifle on full automatic ate through her shields and sliced her chest to ribbons. She fell back into the water, the tattoo of the dragon across her left side facing up. Red fired two shots, felling the target she had missed, then ran to her. A single glance told him Silk was dead. He bent down and closed her eyelids, hoping that the afterlife would be kind to the team's guardian angel.

"Get going," Z shouted at the refugees, she threw away the Banshee, the old rifle's heat sink had finally given out. "The safe zone's not far."

Looking back, Z saw Williams running through the tall grass. Ash looked back at her 2IC, Z nodded. Just a few more minutes and the mission would be completed. Z had to buy the refugees a few more minutes. Turning back to the river, she saw the Blue Suns beginning to cross, grabbing Doc by the back of his harness, she leapt down the slope, pulling Blackburn into the long grass with her. She yelled for Red to follow.

Red picked up a Stryker and fired away until it overheated, then he ripped open the casing, jammed a flare inside and threw the rifle at the Suns. The heat sink exploded, covering three batarians in flames. Red considered trying the trick with another rifle, but the sound of bullets whizzing past his head was enough to convince him this was a bad idea. He took a running jump into the elephant grass.

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Sahin was impressed, the marines had killed all fifty of the rebels and nearly a hundred of his men. They were nearly at the Safe Zone but that didn't particularly worry him, he had more reinforcements on the way. If he had to, he would burn the Asari Commandoes out of their hole. Victory was so close, so very close.

Two hundred batarians waded across the river, the first ones to look out over the field cut down by pistol fire coming from the grass. A few halted, hesitant to stand in plain view of the marksmen in the field, the asari killed them herself.

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Ashley came out of the grass, she began to run up the hill. A rifle bullet hit her leg just above the top of her boot, tearing the muscle. Dropping Lina, she fell to the ground. The impact woke Lina up with a cry of pain. Ashley grabbed her scrim net, tore off a strip and tossed it to Enthra. "Tie it over the wound, make it tight."

The batarians were now over the bank and moving in force through the grass, all two hundred of them now having a clear field of fire. Doc turned and fired three rounds, then ran toward the left flank, Red did the same then ran toward the right, he felt a bullet graze the side of his neck, but didn't feel any pain over the adrenaline.

The Blue Suns came to a halt, nearly two hundred rifles firing on full automatic. The last of the refugees disappeared over the over the top of the hill. Z came to a halt beside Ashley, still firing her pistol. "Come on Chief, we're almost there. Don't you go laying down on the job."

Ashley grunted in acknowledgement as Lina and Enthra helped her to her feet. With their help she began to limp away, Z following a few feet behind.

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Lucky hit the comm line again as he cleared the coastline. =Eagle One, this is Star One. Please advise on friendlies and bad guys in the target grid?=

Static answered him. He swore softly, he couldn't drop his load without a good idea of where his targets were. The Roebuck V missiles in his weapons bay were too powerful to simply shoot at random. They might as well be paperweights, he'd be moving too fast when he got over the target zone to manually identify.

=Eagle One, Star One. Be advised, my time on your grid, ninety seconds.=

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Ashley, and the two asari carrying her crested the hill and Ash breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. The safe zone was less than a hundred meters away. Her boots dragged in the red dirt as she saw the refugees pouring through the gates. They weren't moving fast enough though. The asari commandoes on the other side of the fence were checking them all, making sure there were no infiltrators.

Z expended her final thermal clip, summoning the last of her energy reserves, she hurled a ball of energy at one of the mercenaries, sending him flying. Now the batarians could see her, her silhouette clearly visible against the hillside. Z tried to put up a barrier to augment her shields. She felt bullets pinging off her, and for a moment though that she might have actually beaten her handicap. Then her barrier dissipated, her shields collapsed, one bullet went through her left shoulder, another through her right and a final one through the center of her chest. She collapsed with an involuntary scream.

Ash heard the cry, whipped around and began to limp back toward the hill. "Get to the gate. You're safe now!" she yelled to Lina as she hurled herself down the slope. A bullet grazed her back, severing one of the straps on her webbing. She ignored the pain and continued crawling.

Lina and Enthra continued running, the mercenaries continued advancing.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" Ashley heard the scream of an Asari. She fired her pistol twice in the general direction of the voice. She doubted that she had hit anything. Reaching Z she shook her head in dismay at her friend's wounds. Pulling a field dressing from her pouch, she pressed it tightly on Z's chest wound. "Just hang on Z. The doctor's safe, the mission's done."

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Lina pushed through the refugees, to find a line of Commandoes with drawn weapons. "Listen to me, there are human marines fighting for their lives in that field. You have to go help them. Please." In the clamor she was ignored.

"Coming in!" Doc crawled up to them. He appeared unscathed. "How's she doing?"

"Low pulse," Ashley helped Doc apply medi-gel. She prayed that it would work. A voice came from the radio, Ash grabbed the handset and lifted up in time to catch the last part of the transmission.

=…Star One. I say again Eagle One, this is Star One, do you read me.=

=Star One, this is Eagle One, go=

=What you got down there Ops Chief?= Lucky was relieved to finally hear a voice. He was only thirty seconds away.

=Close on two hundred Blue Sun bad guys between the tree line and my smoke= Ash passed Doc her last smoke grenade. The medic hurled it at the mercenaries. White smoke hissed out. Williams looked around. "Where's Silk and Red?"

"Silk's dead," Doc finished applying the dressing to Z's chest. "I don't think Red made it either."

Lucky lined himself up for his bombing run. =I have white smoke Eagle One=

Ashley looked at Z and Doc, both of them nodded. =Let her rip Lucky. Danger close=

=Roger that, coming in hot= Lucky and Badger kicked in the afterburners on their Hornets. Lucky reached forward and flicked the switch to open the doors on the weapon bay and arm his missiles.

The commandos finally allowed the refugees through the gate, Lina turned as she heard the thunder of engines roaring across the sky. She saw the two grey streaks, Alliance fighters. "Goddess protect them."

Red also saw the planes. His shields finally failed and a bullet went through his lower back. Grunting, he fell to the ground. Was it even worth going on? He didn't even know if the rest of his team was still alive. He heard the roar of the Hornets, and began crawling. When the bombs those fighters were carrying went off, it would be a beautiful explosion, he didn't want to miss it. As he got closer to the hill, he heard Doc and Ashley yelling at him.

"Come on Red, get your ass up here," Doc roared.

Red grunted as he crawled up beside Ashley. "Does it hurt?" he asked Doc.

Doc checked himself quickly, apart from a few cuts and bruises, he was uninjured. "Does what hurt?"

"That lucky horseshoe shoved up your ass," Red exhaled as Doc applied medi-gel. The wound was relatively minor, the medi gel managed to close up the wound and repair the damage to the side of his stomach.

"Cover Z," Ash threw her body over Z's as the Hornet's screamed into weapons range.

Lucky's HUD marked everything between the smoke and treeline as a bogy. =Cut 'em loose Badger.=

The pilots thumbed their triggers, sixteen Roebuck missiles leapt from the Hornets and began to detonate, the mixture of high explosive and incendiary warheads engulfing the Blue Suns. The asari screamed as flames wrapped around her.

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"NO!" Sahin roared as he watched the explosion. "NO!" The Alliance fighters had destroyed his entire force. He saw Kodiak's entering the atmosphere, the voice of one of his superior's ordering him to abandon the mission and salvage whatever he could. Running to the truck, he started it up and began to drive. He may have lost this round, but he still had managed to smuggle a sizable amount of slaves past the Alliance blockade.

He would recover, he would survive.

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Lina saw the first of the three Kodiak's land within the safe zone. 'So now they come,' she thought bitterly as she watched the hundred foot flames begin to die away. She didn't think that anyone could have survived the blast, which had rattled her teeth from a hundred meters away.

Ash, Z, Doc and Red scrambled up the slope, Ash and Red holding each other up, with Doc staggering under Z's weight. Lina gasped as she saw the four figures come over the hilltop, she began to run towards them, she needed to make sure they were alright.

"Keep Z moving," Ash choked out, her throat dry from the heated air. Pieces of shrapnel had made stinging cuts across her back, her fatigue shirt flapped open showing the bloody grazes. Another one had slashed her forehead, blood ran into her right eye and swelled it up, forcing her to shut it. Dirt, explosive residue, blood and sweat coated every inch of her body. Some of her black hair had been burned away by the heat of the missiles. She saw Lina, Enthra and another colonist running towards her. Fatigue and pain washed over her and she collapsed to her knees.

"Damn that hurts," she said weakly as Lina and Enthra helped her to her feet. They began to stagger forward, the two asari practically dragging her toward the gate. Ash saw the crowd of refugees part for them. Anoka stepped out in front of her.

"Operations Chief," the young woman seemed to struggle to find the right words.

Ash tried to smile at her. With the blood in her eyes and mouth, it looked more like a grimace. "We made it."

Anoka nodded, a pained smile appearing on her gentle features. "I'm sorry about…your men Chief. I will never forget them."

Ashley returned her nod, and began walking again, leaning heavily on Lina. She heard Anoka's voice behind her. "God…God will never forget you Chief. Thank you."

Ashley looked back at her. "Take care of yourself," she gasped as two more colonists moved beside her, taking her weight, carrying her through the crowd.

The last three members of Eagle Unit followed Ashley, Red and Doc refusing help. Anoka smiled at Z, who, dosed up on medi-gel and painkillers, was still able to understand.

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"Out of the way please, open the gate," Hackett was flanked by Mikhailovich and a pair of armed marines, the two admirals were wearing the same camouflaged fatigues as their men, the insignia on their duty caps still identifying them as admirals. One of the commandos tried to stop him, he handed her an electronic pad. "You'll find everything is in order, open this gate please."

The commando nodded. "Get this gate open, I want these people processed on the double."

Hackett took off his cap as he came face to face with Williams for the first time in three days. "Welcome back Operations Chief."

Ashley nodded, identifying Hackett by the sound of his voice rather than his face. She could barely see past the blood. "This is Doctor Lina Harrik Admiral, and this is Enthra Tekula, daughter of the late Matriarch Allatha." She took her arm from around Lina, she swayed slightly as she stood unsupported. "I have men down in the field sir."

"We've got two Kodiak's going to take care of them," Hackett reassured her.

Ashley remembered the shrapnel wounds on Lina's back. "The doctor is in need of some medical attention sir."

"So do you, come on, let's get her out of here," Hackett indicated the marines help Ashley, he began walking with her. Mikhailovich stayed behind for a second, gazing at the refugees. He saw Z, Red and Doc staggering toward him. The admiral, accused by many of being sexist, racist and bigoted ran forward and took Red's place helping Z along.

"Come on, let's get this happening!" Mikhailovich took Z's weight. "Don't worry men, you've done it. They're all safe."

As Ashley and the rest of the naval personnel moved back toward the Kodiaks, Lina turned to look at the safe zone. "Lina, Lina!" excited chattering reached her eyes as the children flown out a few days before ran to greet her and their parents.

"Rebecca!" she heard Anoka cry out as the mother ran to embrace her daughter. Lina smiled, a steep price had been paid for this moment. The lives of four brave soldiers and seven more colonists had been lost, but now they were safe. Now they were free.

Enthra found herself surrounded by asari of all ages, they recognized her as the matriarch's daughter. She felt unworthy of their attention.

"We love you Lina," Anoka took the asari doctor's hand. "All of us. We will always love you."

Z was lain down on a stretcher, an IV inserted to replace the blood she had lost. Doc stayed close, supervising the treatment of the Gunnery Chief. She was lifted onto a Kodiak, Ashley met Red's eyes as the heavy gunner surveyed the reunions taking place. Red nodded, satisfaction mixing with sorrow as he stepped aboard the Kodiak with Doc and Z. The first dropship lifted off with Mikhailovich.

Ashley sat down in the door of the second Kodiak. She shut her eyes, then felt someone nudge her, she opened them to see Foehammer offering her an open canteen. "Hell of a job Chief. You made the right decision."

Ashley half smiled as she drank deeply. She had done the impossible, and she had done it without Shephard looking over her shoulder. She sighed as she thought about her dead friends. 'Accept them into your hands O Lord,' she prayed silently. 'And may eternal light shine among them.'

The refugees around Enthra began to sing. It was a beautiful song, the same one that they had sung on their first march together from the mission to Landing Zone Alpha. Lina sat next to Ashley on the dropship.

"I forgot to ask, what do the words of that song even mean?"

Lina kept a sad smile. "It's an old folk song, the Ballad of the Ardat-Yakshi. It means that light of courage shall banish the demons of the night winds."

"Nice song," Ashley muttered as the doors on the Kodiak closed. She saw Enthra lifting her hand in the air, waving at her. The Asari shouted one word before the dropship lifted off.

"Freedom!"

Whew, that brings us to the end. There will be an epilogue, and if you review, I might even do a sequel. :)


	10. Epilogue

Tears of the Sun

Epilogue

I own nothing.

SSV EVEREST MEDICAL BAY

FOUR DAYS AFTER CONCLUSION OF OPERATION UPPERCUT

'…not unbecoming men that strove with gods.' Ashley finished typing the message and held the pad up to survey it. The message didn't feel like much, it was composed mainly out of boredom while lying in bed in the Everest's medical bay. As the only uninjured member of the team, Doc had been the one to deliver the debriefings to Hackett and the rest of Alliance Command. Red was accompanying Slow's body back to his family on the Citadel. Without any family of their own, Flea, Silk and Lake had been buried in space, with full military honors.

Z was in an induced coma, while the surgeons repaired the damage that had been done to her chest organs. She was out of danger, but wouldn't be fighting fit for a long while yet. Doctor Lina Harrik had stayed for the burial of Ashley's team, and had personally supervised Z's medical treatment, then she got on a ship headed toward the Citadel, intending to recruit more doctors and funds, then come back to continue her work. Ashley couldn't help a wry grin, Lina didn't know how to give up.

And Ash? The only serious wounds were to her legs, the lower muscles in her left leg were sewn back together, although physical therapy was needed before she could walk easily on it. The grazes on her face and back were taken care of with a coat of medi-gel, the scars remaining at her request. Some of her hair had been completely burned away, the medics had run a follicle regenerator over her scalp, it'd be back to normal in a few weeks. She had spent her 'observation' time in sickbay composing a message for Slow's family, detailing how his bravery and intelligence had given them the advantage right when they needed it. She had a feeling they'd appreciate that.

There was a rumor floating about that the Council of Matriarchs were planning to give her men a unit citation, and award her with the Thessian Star of Valor. It would make them the first humans to receive asari commendations. Enthra had remained on the planet, the maiden planning to follow in her mother's footsteps to bring peace to the planet, maybe she would actually succeed considering the beating that the rebels had taken.

Ash had gained the Alliance some very good publicity all over Citadel Space, and a lot of fear out in the Terminus. Eagle Unit itself was still a highly classified N7 group, and as such, the still living members of the team could not be identified, but the deeds of Ashley's men were spreading fast. Alliance recruiters had wasted no time in portraying Eagle Unit as the best the Alliance could offer the galaxy, sign up rates had doubled overnight. Well placed intelligence agents throughout the Terminus began spreading rumors that Eagle Unit was preparing to come into the Terminus systems. There had been a noticeable drop in drugs and weapons smuggling as the scum of the galaxy tried to be on their best behavior.

Ash had a week of shoreleave coming, she was going to spend it with her family. But before she went, she needed to deal with this. The message was probably going to sound pathetic, but it was better than nothing. She took a deep breath and pressed 'Send'. Heck, the message might not even reach Shephard, but if it did, she hoped he would understand what she was trying to say.

Now, before she took her shoreleave, there was just one last thing that needed doing.

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CERBERUS VESSEL

NORMANDY SR-2, CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS

ONE HOUR OUT FROM OMEGA-4 RELAY

John Matthew Shephard stared at the glass of whiskey on his desk. The end was close now, he could felt it. He had helped the crew with their problems, allowed them to focus on the mission, his SPECTRE status was reinstated, the Normandy was in possession of some of the most advanced armour, shields and weaponry in the galaxy. There was nothing more he could do to prepare. It had been a little over two hours since he returned to the Normandy to find the entire crew MIA, with only Joker and EDI left to explain what had happened. He had immediately ordered a direct course to Omega 4.

He had not expected his time with Cerberus to be anything more than something urgent that needed to be dealt with before he returned to the Alliance. But it had become something more to him, the mission had become personal. But now as he looked at the amber liquid, he felt tired and alone. Jacob had Miranda, the two of them were down in the engine room right now, doing something that he would rather not think about. Garrus and Tali were talking in the forward battery, he had always suspected that Garrus might have been interested in her as more than just a friend. Thane had his son to return to, Samara had her code, Mordin wanted to commence his work on the cure for the genophage, Zaeed was planning his retirement, Grunt wanted glory.

Jack, well she probably just wanted to kill Miranda when the mission was over, Shephard would have to deal with that afterwards. Kasumi had confided in him that she genuinely wanted to stop the Collectors because it was the right thing to do, and because she was hoping to find some loose credits lying around.

"So what are you fighting for Shephard?" he asked himself. "You've got no uniform, you've got no family, and you haven't had any sleep for about seventy two hours."

His private terminal beeped urgently, he took his feet of the desk and brought up his personal messages. There was a new one at the top, the title said 'Sorry about Horizon'.

He scanned quickly through the contents of the letter. It would have looked out of place on any relationship advice column in the galaxy. But to him it was almost poetry. She couldn't lose him again? She wasn't going to. He'd fight through anything the Collector's threw at him, as long as she was waiting for him on the other side. Memories of Ilos flashed past, he picked up her photograph. "I'm coming back!"

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ILIUM: WAREHOUSE DISTRICT

Sahin was limping slightly as he surveyed the slave pens. An Alliance interceptor had chased his blockade runner, causing some slight damage to the hull, and nearly breaking his leg. But he had made it, just like he always did. And he had enough slaves to turn a very handsome profit over the next few months. 'All things taken into account,' he decided. 'I haven't fared too badly.'

The roar of engines overhead made him shake his head. When would the damn asari running this planet start enforcing stricter traffic laws. Then he heard a smash and his world erupted into blinding light. He reached for his pistol, but was knocked off his feet by light concussion round. When he could see again, he found himself surrounded by black suited figures, his men were either captured or dead and the slave pens were being opened. He saw a pair of boots come to a halt in front of him. He looked up into a very familiar face.

"Commander Sahin? I believe we've met before. The name's Williams, Ashley Williams."

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And now I will get to work on the sequel, titled 'Where Eagles Dare'. I will emphasize that it will be an action based storyline, not a fluff one. On a side note, is anyone else frustrated by the lack of good Garrus/Tali fics out there? Also, if you have ideas about what you'd like to see in the sequel, please send them to me.


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